Paul Ryan Fiddles While the GOP Burns

Paul Ryan Fiddles While the GOP Burns

Is there a more diminished figure in the post-Trump Republican Party than Paul Ryan?

The superstar policy wonk who was supposed to give 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney some intellectual heft by joining his ticket. The mild-mannered scholar who was the only person who could unite the fractious GOP caucus in the House in the wake of John Boehner’s surprise retirement last fall. The third-highest ranking member of the government, a leader of a Republican Party adrift who might be able to help steer it through the chaos of a civil war between the establishment and the base that has erupted as Trump’s campaign has foundered.

Ryan’s wonkish nature is supposed to be his big draw, offering a view of government the GOP could contrast against that of the Democratic Party. His seeming lack of an instinct for the rough-and-tumble side of politics was always a strike against his taking over as Speaker of the House last year, but he agreed to give it a shot anyway. But now that angry Breitbartian paranoia has swallowed the GOP whole like a snake swallowing a mouse, Ryan’s wonkery could not be more useless or irrelevant to the moment he and his party find themselves in.

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