Buzzfeed's McKay Coppins has a tongue-in-cheek profile of Paul Ryan and his role as would-be savior of the Republican party that nominated Donald Trump for president.
In the four months since he formally endorsed his party’s nominee for president, Ryan — the esteemed speaker of the House, the sterling guardian of conservatism, the intellectual leader of the Republican Party—has been reduced to a miserable Trump flunky sheepishly counting down the hours until the election is over. Each day he spends tethered to the Donald seems to bring some fresh humiliation; each role he inhabits in the entourage proves more undignified than the last. Adviser, apologist, hype man, scold—none brings redemption, or even reprieve. And so he trudges on toward November, a stench of sadness clinging to him as he goes.
Friends and allies, disappointed though many of them are, have tried to show Ryan support in this difficult time. They labor to give him the benefit of the doubt, to rationalize his endorsement—and when they're defending his honor on the record, they might even find themselves slipping into messianic metaphors. "I feel so sorry for Paul," said Bob Woodson, the veteran civil rights activist who mentors Ryan on issues of poverty and race. "He wishes someone else could take the cup from him. … I'd say 'weary martyr' is a good way to describe him."
Poor, poor Paul Ryan, forced to take the reins of a disintegrating House of Representatives from the failed John Boehner. Now he's forced to carry water for the most horrible nominee for president in the history of the world. Yeah—makes your heart bleed. Ryan is a guy who drank his own Kool-Aid, whose party is so bereft of intellect and principle that his half-baked policies—none of which appeal to mainstream America and none of which actually even work on paper—are all that they have. Ryan won't disavow Trump because Ryan thinks a Trump presidency is the way he can force his dystopian, Ayn Rand-driven vision of the world into policy. He thinks he'll be the de facto president in the face of an uninvolved Trump and a hugely unpopular Mitch McConnell. The only principle at play for Ryan is his own power.
Let's end the farce of Ryan’s leadership now. Can you chip in $3 to each of these candidates to get more Democrats into the House?
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So he blithely goes on, saying Trump's tax evasion is no big deal. "I don't think it's that harmful," he says. "I think people who don't like him are going to continue disliking him." He adds that the story of Trump's nearly $1 billion loss during the boom year of 1995 won't affect Trump's reputation as a stellar businessman. That part of what Ryan says he might actually mean, because he's the guy who spends months coming up with budgets that don't actually even add up. He's such an opponent of taxes that he might even admire the fact that Trump doesn't pay any.
Were Ryan truly principled or concerned about the future of the Republican party, he'd denounce Trump for the monster that he is. But he's not. He's a guy looking for an angle that will gain him that much more influence, that much more power. That will put him in a position to either run Donald Trump's presidency or challenge Hillary Clinton in four years. Paul Ryan is in it for Paul Ryan. Nothing more, nothing less.