No tears for Paul Ryan: He is contemptible

He believed he was out in front of history and positioned to shape it but wound up being dragged behind the emperor’s chariot like a limp noddle smiling and agreeing all the way
https://t.co/4WjxM2kOyb

— 🌸🌺Ellie🌺🌸 (@ellievan65) December 2, 2018

“…Culture-war politics had previously been seen as the glue that stuck together a disparate coalition of voters behind a party whose real agenda was to support big business, “law and order,” low taxes on the rich and expansionist foreign policy. But as Pat Buchanan astutely perceived way back in 1992 (in a truly terrifying speech I witnessed in person), ground-level Republican voters only wanted the culture war and barely tolerated that other stuff. In fact, except for unleashing cops against poor people, they actively disliked it: They were totally fine with government spending for programs they actually used, as long as the money could be steered away from black people and immigrants.

This is what my colleague Amanda Marcotte describes as the descent into “Troll Nation,” bringing us to the current moment when “conservatives” no longer hold any ideology worthy of that name, and possess no policy goals beyond public spectacles of cruelty and “owning the libs.” I imagine Ryan finds that regrettable, and longs for a day when earnest discussions of Friedrich Hayek’s theories of market perfection will come back into vogue. But he’s probably smart enough to understand that the game is up, which is why he’s crawling out of Washington now, not just defeated (there’s no shame in that) but thoroughly disgraced.”