Jonathan Chait has put together a wonderful sketch of the potential contribution of Paul Ryan to America. Excerpt:
What actually separates the insurgents from the Establishment is not ideology but tactics. The insurgents refuse to accept the constitutional limits of their power, and believe that more frenzied assertions of their core beliefs, combined with a periodic willingness to shut down the government and threaten a currency default, can prevail over President Obama through force of will. The insurgents mistakenly interpret disagreements over means as disagreements over ends; when Republican leaders express reluctance to shut down the government over Obamacare or Planned Parenthood, the insurgents take this as actual support for those programs.
What makes Ryan so perfectly suited to bridge this divide is that he perfectly combines ideological extremism with methodological pragmatism. He is a longtime disciple of the teachings of Ayn Rand, whom he has described as the inspiration for his entire political career. He spent the Bush years pushing the administration to adopt much larger and politically explosive proposals to cut taxes for the rich and privatize Social Security than it deemed politically viable. ...Chait,NYMag
What Democrats understand (or most of them do) is that the average American may scream and yell about the economy and government when they're out there on the street. But at home a stable old government -- going on and doing what it does -- tends to get better results than licensing the rich to rob everyone else. We feel Paul Ryan's hands groping for our pockets even as we read about his possible resurgence.
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John Cassidy offers a well-considered take on the Republican debacle and on Paul Ryan. Ryan is viewed by some as the "prophet" of the party. But the party is falling apart and one has to wonder whether Ryan's the guy to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. It's not as though Ryan has a clean slate...
As Ryan travels back to Janesville, Wisconsin, where he lives with his wife and three children, he won’t have forgotten that some conservatives who are now members of the Freedom Caucus opposed the 2013 agreement, describing it as a sellout that didn’t include big enough spending cuts. Ryan will also be aware that some conservative activists are opposed to the idea of him becoming Speaker, accusing him of that most grievous of crimes: being a Washington insider. “Paul Ryan has voted for every bailout, TARP, No Child Left Behind, etc.,” Erick Erickson, the columnist and radio host, wrote on Friday. “He is a team player and conservatives in Washington cannot afford to be on Team DC-GOP when the American people are mad as hell at Washington.” ...Cassidy,NewYorker
Thing is, Mr. Erickson, the American people are polling as though they wish Washington would function and they're blaming the Republicans now for the mess. So yeah. Ryan is a problem. But the worst problem is the swamp of ersatz "conservatism" the party has become.
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And WaPo's Greg Sargent makes a really good point: this is a permanent war, fueled by people who luxuriate in self-righteousness and the attention their rebellion affords them.
The party is tearing itself apart, unable to pick a leader for one of its key institutional bases of power and riven by disagreements that seem unbridgeable.
But you want to know who isn’t upset about all this? The ultra-conservative members who are driving it, not to mention the conservative organizations and media figures who are cheering them on. They’re having a blast.
The most important thing to understand about what’s happening now is that this is a permanent rebellion. It has its demands, both substantive and procedural, but those demands aren’t the point, and if they were met, new ones would be forthcoming. For the people behind the chaos, rebellion itself is the point. It’s about the fight, not about the outcome of that fight. They will never stop rebelling.
