So how is the Trump era working out for Paul Ryan?

Let's check in

Ryan's blue period.
(Image credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

This was supposed to be a time of joy and progress for the Republican Party's golden boy, Paul Ryan. In 2015 he reluctantly accepted the position of speaker of the House, at last hearing the desperate pleas of his colleagues to lead them in a troubled time. The deep policy knowledge for which he was so often praised by Washington reporters, combined with his ultra-ripped biceps and delts, would guide them through the political minefields they had lain for themselves. And when Donald Trump became his party's nominee, Ryan expressed his principled misgivings in a tone of perfectly attuned concern and sorrow, repeatedly telling voters that he could not abide the latest despicable thing Trump said (but by the way, please vote for him).

Then when Trump won a surprise victory, all the waiting and fighting and angst was supposed to be redeemed in a glorious eruption of conservative legislation. With a Republican in the White House who neither knew nor cared about policy at all, it would be left to Ryan to remake America according to his vision of a Randian paradise where society's makers are duly rewarded, and the bleating masses either get themselves a strong pair of bootstraps or learn what life is like without a government "hammock" to support them.

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Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman is a senior writer with The American Prospect magazine and a blogger for The Washington Post. His writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines, and web sites, and he is the author or co-author of four books on media and politics.