Paul Ryan: GOP Must Reject Cult of Personality and Mar-a-Lago Flatterers

When I turn to former House Speaker and Romney running mate Paul Ryan for support, I feel like FDR must have felt when he had to ally with Stalin to beat Hitler. Stalin was a menace who would have destroyed America if he’d had the chance, but Hitler was the greater existential threat, so we buddied up and did what we had to do to save the world.

Paul Ryan would have destroyed the social safety net and further widened the gap between our nation’s plutocrats and the other 99% of the country. In his speech at the Reagan Library yesterday, he continued to spread horsehockey about the Biden Administration and all of us patriots who support our President:

Ryan criticized President Joe Biden on policy matters and blasted Democrats for “identity politics.”

“In 2020, the country wanted a nice guy who would move to the center and depolarize our politics,” Ryan said. “Instead, we got a nice guy pursuing an agenda more leftist than any president in my lifetime. These policies might have the full approval of his progressive supporters, but they break faith with the middle-of-the-road folks who made the difference for him on Election Day” [Bill Glauber, “Paul Ryan Criticizes Donald Trump and His Hold on the Republican Party in Speech Mapping out Vision for Conservatives.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2021.05.27].

President Biden and the Democratic Party are not breaking faith with any Americans. We are working to ensure every American can enjoy the fullest liberty and economic opportunity possible with the support of robust public works and intelligent, effective government. And the “middle-of-the-road folks” Ryan is trying to spin into a campaign lever appear to support President Biden’s efforts to support them: a majority of Americans support the President’s infrastructure plan and the comprehensive, holistic definition that underpins that investment in our future.

And we are not the party tying our reason for being to the identity of one man, one loud, self-obsessed tyrant who will lie to an entire party and an entire nation to benefit himself, consequences be darned. Here’s where Ryan’s deception breaks and he starts speaking usefully to the body politic:

“Once again, we conservatives find ourselves at a crossroads,” Ryan continued. “And here’s the reality that we have to face: If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we’re not going anywhere. Voters looking for Republican leaders want to see independence and mettle. They will not be impressed by the sight of yes-men and flatterers flocking to Mar-a-Lago.”

…”If we fail this test, it will be because the progressive left will have won by default,” he said. “It will be because the conservative cause … lost its way and followed the left into the trap of identity politics, defining itself by resentments instead of by ideals. It will be because we mistake reactionary skirmishes in the culture wars with a coherent agenda. It will be because we gave too much allegiance to one passing political figure and weren’t loyal enough to our principles” [Steve Peoples, “Ex-Speaker Ryan to GOP: Reject Former President T****, ‘2nd-Rate Imitations’,” AP via KCRA-TV, 2021.05.27].

In two paragraphs, Ryan offers a solid condemnation of the campaign strategy of Governor Kristi Noem and the former dictator  over whom she’s been fawning at Mar-a-Lago on a too-frequent basis. He offers a useful warning to all candidates and citizens that we must concentrate on principles and practical policy outcomes, not the cheap personal politics that distract us from solving real problems for the greater good.

Plus, Ryan says the last guy in the White House dishonored and disgraced the White House:

While noting Republican advances in the House during the 2020 election, Ryan said results for the White House and Senate “left Republicans powerless in Washington.”

“Even worse, it was horrifying to see a presidency come to such a dishonorable and disgraceful end,” Ryan said, a reference to Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and the Jan. 6 uprising at the Capitol [Glauber, 2021.05.27].

Ryan is still Stalin. Once we rid ourselves of the Mar-a-Lago Menace, we have to remain on guard against the fundagelical corporatocracy Paul Ryan would impose.

But even as he remains trapped in his partisan positioning, Paul Ryan still manages to speak some truth: the last guy in the White House was a lying traitor, bringing shame upon both the nation and the party he exploited for his own vanity. If Republicans truly believe this country needs a course correction in 2024, they must correct their own course, crush their cult of personality, and restore their pursuit of honest conservative ideals.