Talking about the evolution of Paul Ryan's ideas really misses the point. He wasn't interesting or original: his "Roadmap" was basically Newt Gingrich's 1995 Medicare plan and Arthur Laffer's tax plan 1/ nyti.ms/2JNDMgL
The interesting question instead is why centrists and the news media elevated such an obvious poseur to the status of great thought leader. It's not about the man, it's about the narrative. And the next question is, who's next? 2/
The truth is that there has been a long dearth of interesting policy ideas on the right. The most recent I can think of is Stuart Butler's concept of universal health coverage via mandates and subsidies -- a Heritage idea that became Obamacare 3/
That was in the late 1980s -- and it was accepted on the left while becoming anathema on the right.I may be missing some other ideas, but I don't think any major ones. And the reigning orthodoxy on the right consists of known falsehoods 4/
The trouble is that to say this -- to have a list of major ideas and major thinkers that contains no currently active conservative ideas or Republicans -- seems "unbalanced". Ryan was credited with virtues he didn't at all possess to try and fill this gap. 5/
If experience is any guide, soon the media and the professional centrists will find another right-wing intellectual hero. And he will also be a complete, obvious fraud 6/
