Has Paul Ryan Figured It Out?

Here's an interesting mid-length article featuring Paul Ryan, the man who ran away from home as soon as he left Congress.  (So much for the aw-shucks homeboy, eh?)

Ryan's analysis of Conservatism is decent; he even refers to "fusionism," but not that of Frank Meyer.

Then he gets to Trump and it's clear that Ryan hates everything Trump stood for.

...Policy rather than philosophy is the basis for “a solid fusion” as Ryan understands it. After George W. Bush the conflicts that had divided the right before his administration reemerged. Over the last three decades, continued Ryan, “I think we’ve had pauses, we’ve won some White Houses, but we’ve never settled into a posture of a majoritarian center-right movement that is capable of racking up consistent majorities, presidencies, and putting in place a governing agenda for the 21st century.”

Instead, there has been “churn,” and “right now it’s dominated by Trump. Which is populism, just pure rank, untethered-to-principle populism, cult of personality populism, which is really not an agenda, a theory; it’s a person. So I think we’re still in this churn, and I think underneath that is the kind of fight we had in the early ’90s, is the kind of fight we’re having now, but with digital.”...

Right at the top you can see Ryan's problem.  He doesn't care about a philosophy of governing; he cares only about policy.  A true Wonk!!

Then Ryan claims that Trump's populism is "untethered-to-principle" and that it's a personality cult.

I suspect that Ryan is wrong, and is whistling past the graveyard.  He acknowledges that in passing:

 ...Ryan described how he had hoped the Tea Party would give rise to “supply side 2.0,” an agenda of “pro-growth economics, limited government, get the debt and entitlements under control, and a robust foreign policy.” That was the agenda he wanted to pursue in the House of Representatives, though “on the issues of trade and immigration there was a fight, but we sort of pushed that to the side, and then we really tapped the Tea Party movement. We got the majority back.”

Trade and immigration would not remain off to the side, however: “In hindsight, this is just me looking back, we didn’t understand…the potency of those issues, the power of those issues, and [what] I think the establishment Republicans, people like me included, missed was just the effects of issues like trade and immigration on the forgotten man. And how that really played into not just policy but people’s thinking and perception.”...

Yah, Paulie, you'd be amazed how being jobless and hungry to go Global can focus one's attention on Wonk Fails.  See, e.g., Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, Flint, Northern Indiana, Pittsburgh, and the mills and furniture makers of the South.  For starters.

It's not Trump, Paul-boy.  It's America First.  You've been fighting against that ever since Pat Buchanan, and you're losing that fight, so you now call it "unprincipled" and "a cult."

No, Paul.  You forgot who you were supposed to be working for in Janesville.

And pretty soon, they'll forget you, too.

The article's conclusions are dead-on, by the way.  Worth the read.