Paul Ryan is lowkey the most cynical politician in Washington
plenty of politicians have agendas that will objectively make poverty more common and more difficult to manage, but it takes a special creature to promote that agenda on a dewy-eyed tour announcing he’s focusing on fighting poverty
Paul Ryan understood very well that being soft-spoken, using lots of numbers, and pandering to Beltway conventional wisdom is a good way to get unearned credit for being any different than Louie Gohmert or Steve King
Ryan knew that Donald Trump is a racist and a conman who shouldn’t be allowed within a light year of the role of commander in chief, but supported him anyway gambling that he could use him to pass unpopular policies
Paul Ryan has spent barely any of his adult life outside of the cozy confines of politics and right wing think tanks, and he’s desperately eager to implement policies that could only seem good in the abstract from inside that cocoon, while in the real world they cause suffering
he is an incredibly effective fundraiser because his entire worldview and policy outlook tells the wealthy and powerful what they want to hear
he will retire comfortably to think tanks and corporate boards, bathing in soft-focus profiles about how he was just too honest and earnest for Washington for the rest of his life. He’ll never feel as bad about what he’s wrought as he should.
nevertheless, today is a good day: Paul Ryan is why people don’t like politics and we are going to be better off without him in it
