House Speaker Paul Ryan continues walking that tightrope. He has to support Donald Trump, because party unity and all. But he can’t be too enthusiastic or he jeopardizes his own ability to be taken seriously in a few months, when Trump has crashed and burned. He has to signal that, you know, he’s for Trump because he has to be, but you other Republicans? Wink wink.
"The last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that's contrary to their conscience. Of course, I wouldn't do that," Ryan told NBC News' Chuck Todd in an interview for "Meet the Press," a portion of which aired Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." [...]
"But I feel as a responsibility, institutionally, as the speaker of the House, that I should not be leading some chasm in the middle of our party," Ryan said. "Because you know what I know that will do?. That will definitely knock us out of the White House."
He shouldn’t be leading a chasm, and hey, if a chasm happens to open up in the party, he’ll have had one foot planted firmly on each side of it, ready to make the case that he was on the winning side all along. Problem being, sometimes when a chasm opens under your feet, you fall into it rather than jumping to one side in time.
And remember, Ryan would like us to believe he’s above Trumpism, but the real reason for his angst over Trump is about packaging, not policy. Ryan has been leading the starve-the-poors charge for years now—he’s just been trying to make it look sympathetic and caring, and Trump is blowing up that carefully constructed image.