While Paul Ryan sits at home in Wisconsin, pondering calls to serve as speaker and be the savior of his party, others in the conservative movement are preparing a big, bright “RINO” sign to drape around his neck.
Under these circumstances, he’d be nuts to take the job.
In the House, most of Ryan’s opposition is originating in the so-called Freedom Caucus, an ultra-conservative group that comprises barely 15 percent of the overall GOP caucus. It has two members from Georgia, Jody Hice and Barry Loudermilk, which ought to tell you all you need to know about its intellectual heft and grasp on reality.
So how is a small group of untethered, extremist malcontents somehow able to wield veto power over the Grand Old Party, including the selection of its speaker? They can’t, not by themselves. The real power behind the throne, the opposition that truly matters, comes from right-wing media, talk shows, websites and interest groups. And to hear them tell it, Ryan’s ascension to the speaker’s podium would be yet another betrayal of the conservative cause.
Why do they say that? Mainly because that’s what they do for a living. Betrayal, outrage and fear drive their email fund-raising; it is how they draw ratings points and Internet clicks, it is how they get themselves on Fox News. It is the meat upon which they feed, and these days they feed very well.
Thus, Rush Limbaugh confides to his listeners that “a lot of people think Paul Ryan has sold out.” At RedState, Erick Erickson derides Ryan as “John Boehner’s weaker sister” “poor little Paulie,” and “poor little Eddie Munster.” Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots condemns Ryan as “anything but conservative” and completely unacceptable to the party’s base.
Yet just three years ago, these very same people were gleeful that Mitt Romney had selected a conservative of Ryan’s stature to be his vice presidential nominee.
“Finally, the Romney campaign has a spokesman who can do what Mitt Romney has never been capable of doing — defend success and articulate a message of why we must reform our nation’s budget and support free markets,” Erickson wrote at the time. (Ironically, he also warned that “the left will demonize and demagogue Paul Ryan.”)
Conservatives talk a lot these days about “revolution” and “the Washington establishment.” But once the “revolution” has been professionalized and institutionalized, it is no longer the revolution. It becomes the new establishment, and that is the state of affairs today within the GOP. It is this new GOP establishment that decides who in the party is a “true conservative,” and who is not, an awesome power that means everything. It is also the new establishment that demands the election of a mythical “true conservative” as speaker, even though it knows or ought to know that goal to be unattainable.
But as they see it, what’s the use of setting an attainable goal? A goal that is attained produces satisfaction, an outcome completely at odds with their business model. Unattainable goals guarantee frustration, anger, resentment and feelings of persecution, all of which are so much easier to monetize. And as long as they’re driving the debate, I doubt Ryan has much interest in being “Boehner’s weaker sister.”
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