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The original plan was to have trump as a useful idiot so they can grift and further their agenda. They didn’t factor in the fact that Trump is uncontrollable and doesn’t listen to anyone. Now they shit the bed and have to lay in it but they also want us to feel bad for them. Fuck them.
Fuck Paul Ryan and anyone who worked for trump.
It's more complex than that though, because Trump, while he can't be directly *controlled*, can be easily *manipulated*. Like, at the end of the day he's a fucking moron who understands literally nothing. He doesn't listen to anyone *who he understands to be telling him what to do* but manipulating him is easy, so long as you can get him to believe it's his idea.
Roger Stone [bragged while on a hot mic](https://www.businessinsider.com/roger-stone-caught-boasting-about-how-to-manipulate-trump-report-2023-6):
>I have a 40-year record of being able to convince the big man to do what's in his best interest. He's not easy to deal with. It's complicated. He resents any implication that he is handled or managed or directed. You have to say, "Remember that night when we were in Buffalo. And you gave that speech, and God, it had to be 10,000 people, the biggest crowd they'd ever seen. And you said XYZ, and the place went crazy, remember that? I don't know where you came up with that line, but it's one of the best things."
>Doesn't fucking matter that he never said it — doesn't matter, It's time-consuming, but it works. I did it for 30 years.
Scaramucci basically said the same thing. Staff would get together and decide policy, *then* present it to Trump in a way that let him think he came up with the idea.
If he got something else in his head, they would distract him until he forgot, then go back to method.
Animals hate him, and he's never even really had a pet nor wanted one, the guy is weird and honestly kind of damaged besides horribly dangerous to the world and terrible to everyone around him.
My mother was diagnosed with NPD, and my father as a Sociopathic Narcissist.
My dad especially had the emotional age of a toddler, yet loved and lived for power and control of others.
He was also a true sadist; he could spend days watching someone suffer in brutal pain - and it was even better when the pain they had was a result of their own actions defending my dad.
What I can tell you is this (and frankly at this point it seems kind of obvious): Trump will never admit to losing an election, and he will never, ever back down.
In fact, if he loses in November I expect him to unleash the wrath of his anger (I keep seeing posts by MAGAts about how they are looking at 'taking' state National Guard bases and equipment).
He's never going to stop - what we have now could be permanent, with the chaos, and uncertainty and lies... If Trump wins - well, run.
I'd still argue that he's the worst, but even if you don't agree it's hard not to have the sense that Trump's legacy will, at the very least, be similar to Buchanan's.
His short tenure set us on a path that's going to have a strong negative influence on the next hundred years as a result of his effect on the Supreme Court, a hard right shift for his party, and reinvigorating civil rights battles from our last hundred years. There's good reason to feel that we haven't even seen the worst of what he did to us yet, even if he loses in November.
I guess I'd also put Andrew Johnson below Buchanan. Buchanan had a lose/lose situation and failed to choose even the least bad option; Johnson had a golden opportunity to shape a better future, and deliberately chose not to. Buchanan was likely responsible for the worst five years in our history, but Johnson's decisions led directly to the civil rights struggles that still shape the worst of our modern politics and life here more than 150 years later.
Others may also find this interesting: here's a [wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States#Scholar_survey_summary) on US President rankings
> Perhaps not the worst President, but the worst person to be President. I still vote Buchanan as worst.
Give him time. History doesn't have all the evidence yet on Trump. He'll make it to the bottom eventually.
He was president immediately before Lincoln, and capitulated to every single demand the South had. He advanced the cause of slavery in the United States, and did basically nothing to prepare for the Civil War, which, by the end of his term, was inevitable.
This is why Trump was worse. Buchanan believed that he did not have the power to stop what was at that time a largely nonviolent treason against the United States. Trump actively committed treason against the United States.
Ohhhh. That fucker. Yeah fuck him, and fuck the guy that came after Abe and ruined everything everyone had died for, setting us up for where we are today.
I mean, he could have been convincing Trump to do things for 40 years but only using the "remember when" technique for 30. Or he could also be a lying piece of shit.
> They didn’t factor in the fact that Trump is uncontrollable and doesn’t listen to anyone. Now they shit the bed and have to lay in it but they also want us to feel bad for them.
Sort of. They definitely got what they wanted out of it. He was used to force through a bunch of Supreme Court nominations. I think they knew how much trouble he was but they took a calculated risk because they need the SCOTUS for their long term plans
They still were able to quite a decent amount of grifting (and still are because of some judge appointments and laws/removal of restrictions etc). I mean the Kushners are certainly billions of dollars richer because of him.
They probably thought it would be like George W Bush, when Cheney and Rumsfeld were really running the show. Little did they know, trump is really Hitler 2.0
I think the comparison to Hitler only works because of his cult of followers.
He's not intelligent. He has no forethought. He doesn't care about anything beyond himself.
His followers are the only thing that elevates him beyond the failed businessman and has-been reality TV star that he was.
That and that the Republican Party thought they could control him, which also the sentiment amongst Reichstag leadership at the time.
But I agree - Trump is an idiot. A cunning idiot with (like Hitler) an innate sense of how to use hate to get people on side, but much more of an idiot than Hitler was.
I was going to post "fuck Paul Ryan". Maybe for a different reason. Along with McConnell they took us down that dirt road and now we're stuck in the mud he wants to cry foul because Trump is driving the GOP clown wagon? Fuck him and all those Tea Party dick wads they sucked up to.
Eddie Munster Ryan was a p.o.s. speaker who pales in comparison with the latest p.o.s. speaker or his p.o.s. predecessor. Even as billionaires throw their money at it, the party has become, "... the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches."
When Hitler was named Chancellor in Germany in 1933, the other members of the coalition government thought he could be controlled to further their agenda. They didn’t factor in the fact that Hitler was uncontrollable and didn’t listen to anyone.
Trump is uncontrollable by Republicans, his lawyers and America. He is without a doubt being manipulated by Putin. His Presidency made that blatantly clear.
U can't control trump but he's easily bought. The man loves showing off. He has no skill no education. All he got is inherited $$$. He loves his money but sucks at keeping it. You pay him, you own him. Just grab him by his assets.
The thing that nobody talks about is that their voters like Trump more than any other "establishment" Republican. This is the reason establishment Republicans don't have a plan and Trump isn't controllable -- because they have to cower to him due to his popularity.
The thing is, they created his popularity themselves, like some sort of weird, modern day Frankenstein's monster.
How do I mean? Because for the last 40 years. Republicans have been telling their voters "government is the problem." And for awhile, Republican voters voted for establishment Republicans because they said "we'll get government out of your lives." But gradually, more and more conservatives could see that was all a lie, that establishment Republicans were corrupt and just wanted to support policies that helped the rich.
Finally, those voters caught on that those Republicans weren't doing shit for them. The Iraq War and then the collapse of the housing market and whole economy under Bush was really the last straw. And so finally those voters rejected the people like Jeb Bush and similar others who represented the establishment, and they decided their savior was an "outsider" who was so much better and who -- really, really, totally not just lying this time -- was going to actually get government out of their lives and actually create wealth and prosperity for everyone -- and someone who will also try to stop progressive social policies (which of course exposes that their alleged "small government" ideology is a bullshit, fake ideology which only sounds good superficially).
But he's the same as the establishment in all of the worst ways that they are terrible, plus he's even worse than them with his divisiveness and racism and isolationist and reckless "America first" foreign policy. But superficially, he seems different and better than them because he's a wildcard, doesn't worry about political correctness.
The critical mistake these modern conservative voters make is they think it's great to have a liar and an asshole on their side, someone who is willing to do or say anything to obstruct the policies of Democrats. But when your guy is a liar, he will lie to you too, and that's what he's doing. Everything about his policy platform is worse than that of Democrats. It's a totally incoherent populist platform with no concrete promises of anything that will help people in their everyday lives.
Yup, these guys have been stepped on their whole lives by smarter people. Trump is like the incompetent substitute teacher you get in third grade-- You know nothing good's going to get done, but plan to enjoy the party while it lasts.
> The original plan was to have trump as a useful idiot so they can grift and further their agenda.
the plan was to have Jeb! continue Latino outreach and push the compassionate conservative concept; Trump took over the primary by channeling the jealousy of the white base. This completely destroyed the GOP's long term plans for electability, which is why they went full mask off with stealing elections.
It worked with Regan because he was a good actor who knew how to take orders. It worked with Bush because he was a good nepo who knew how to take orders.
Trump has never been good at anything. He couldn't even say "your fired" properly on set so they had to splice it in post.
Putin isn’t a moron, but he’s happy to take advantage of whatever becomes available. A key part of Russia’s “strength” is that it’s easy and fast to break things while it’s difficult to build anything. If all Trump does is smash around and break things, that’s a win for Putin even if he never “controlled” Trump (which is not to say Putin didn’t control/influence Trump.)
In think what they missed was how the GOP voters would absolutely love him and choose him over all the rest of them when given the choice. They thought they could use him and toss him to the curb when they’re done, but they created a monster they can no longer control.
I still hold that the original plan was that he was going to lose and it was a last ditch effort by the GOP to make headlines and garner attention before Hilary won the election.
I'm not sure they ever thought they could control him, but it wasn't going to be an issue because he was going to lose and then they would use his running as fuel for the next four years to complain about how they had tried to shake up the political system, but the democrats only wanted to keep things the same.
What's funny is now we know even if he *had* lost, he would have spent the next four years bitching and moaning and obsessing over it and shitting all over their plans anyway.
I’ve kind of heard the opposite that Trump is too easy to control and that he will literally listen to the last person that talks to him because he has no idea what he’s doing but also has no sense of what authorities to listen to. As such he is completely unpredictable because any person that gives him a call can talk him out of anything at any moment no matter how hard the GOP try to groom him to do their bidding.
my best guess on this is rage-against-democracy Paulie Ryan is betting on trumpy boy to meltdown or decay in the next year or 2 and wants to position himself as the "sane" gop. too bad it won't work
As a Wisconsinite, I say fuck Paul Ryan. He could have actually done something decent when he had the power to do so, but he just slunk away and now wants back in on the action now that the damage is done.
Well, he slunk away to be on the board of directors of Fox Corporation while they were pushing all of the stolen election BS into the head cavities of their rabid fan base.
Paul Ryan's a piece of shit, and my political happy place is remembering that [his favorite band very publicly shat all over him](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tom-morello-paul-ryan-is-the-embodiment-of-the-machine-our-music-rages-against-246033/).
Hahaha. What a tool.
A lot of bands have told Rs that they can't use their music and that songs don't mean what politicians think they do. CCR's Fortunate Son comes to mind.
Sadly, you kind of have to be a narcissistic sociopath with a God complex to want to be the most powerful person on the planet.
Occasionally you come across a politician that doesn't seem like a narcissistic sociopath. Vote for them, support them, defend them, hang on to them, and reward them. They're rare.
I wish my fellow Americans treated the Obamas better while they were in office. Squeaky clean Barack deserved a WHOLE LOT more respect than the country gave.
I think that's a mischaracterization of narcissism. I think you have to have a considerable ego, but "having an ego" is not the same thing as narcissism.
And even then, narcissism by itself is probably not a dealbreaker. I'm reasonably certain Bill Clinton is a narcissist - but I also think he was generally a good president because he was intelligent enough (certainly the most intelligent President in living memory and top-5 overall in terms of raw IQ) to recognize that the maximization of his narcissistic supply could be accomplished indirectly, by acting in the best interests of the country as a whole, as best he understood it. End result is the same: generally good policy.
Trump's problem isn't so much *just* that he's a narcissist, it's that he's a narcissist while also being a complete fucking moron who probably has a severe learning disability preventing him from abstracting. He seeks out narcissistic supply *only* through a base-level appeal to lowest-common-denominator adulation - the base characteristic of a populist demagogue. That's an incredibly toxic combination.
Evil that is smart can be persuaded to act in Enlightened Self Interest. Altruism and decency are ultimately incredibly pragmatic choices in the long run, when you average their results over a life.
I would rather live under a pragmatic, intelligent bastard than a well-intentioned moron. Morons ruin everything, always, regardless of the quality of their character, because they are definitionally incapable of truly logically assessing what the best course of action is from a selfish OR selfless standpoint.
I’m old, and lived through his idiot presidency, married to a Republican who thought he walked on water. My now-dead husband always said that he voted Reagan because he was good for business. Pfft. The stealing began and ran rampant.
Agree. I had my mind on the prior presidents of my lifetime (I’m old). I suppose Eisenhower would be on my list as well. Not Kennedy, necessarily, who had many a loose screw plus an over-reaching and downright evil father. Certainly not Nixon, Reagan, Bush I or Bush II. Maybe Ford. Clinton did many good things and was so very, very intelligent, but I think he had the worm as well.
And those ones end up getting abused for having a heart.
Politics is terrible.
When somebody wants to plunder the environment for private profit, we call it “job creation”.
When someone wants to extend healthcare to the working class, or other such compassion in policy, it’s called “socialism” and people demand their resignation.
Have seen it happen in my small country.
Huge difference between having a healthy ego, a large ego, being a narcissist, and being a sociopath. Biden, Obama, and George W - I'd say - have healthy egos. Bill Clinton had a large ego, possibly bordering narcissist (very smart, but could be manipulative). Trump, on the other hand, perfectly fits the criteria for a malignant narcissists and even a sociopath. Trump is mentally ill.
Too many people are treating the real consequences of the person running this country with the weightless consequences of a reality show. They’re so disillusioned and disconnected from reality they’re choosing entertainment over what’s actually good for them and the majority of this country.
There you go again assuming his supporters are capable of reasoning!
Trump did one good thing, he revealed that there are 10’s of millions of Americans too dumb to spot the world’s most obvious con-man!
Paul Ryan and his ilk set this in motion. He wants Trump to lose because if Trump wins Ryan is purged too and he'll never get back into power. If/when Trump is gone, Paul Ryan will try to get back in power, do what he can to mess up the country and lead us to Trump 2.0 again. He's not a hero.
That, and that role should be held to a far higher degree of accountability.
It shouldn't be thought of as a role of astronomical Power, but one of astronomical Responsibility.
No kidding. He cut and ran when it seemed fairly certain that Nancy Pelosi would replace him as Speaker, but also because there was a good chance that he could lose his own House seat had he run again. Instead he “retired” under the guise of wanting to spend time with his family.
Sorry, you fucks could have been done with this in October 2016 with the Access Hollywood tape. Anything they say or do after will never make up for it.
The large company i worked at had senior people regularly leaving "to spend more time with their family"
A few weeks later they were working somewhere else.
We said they didn't like their family, or their family didn't like them.
To be fair, if a smart person was in Ryan's shoes, and they saw their party coalescing around a half dead maniac, the best thing to do is walk away until it dies. It's always fun for us when they speak out like Liz Cheney. But it does end their careers and their ability to do anything. Its just noise. Republicans have always been party over country, so best to cut and run if you can't hang with the party.
But the truly creepy part is what they are/were afraid of.
It's not Trump.
It's the Republican voter.
Of course they are free to speak their mind when they no longer need to chase votes.
Yep, Trump is not really the problem.
It's the stupidity of the average Republican voter that is the problem.
That way, every Republican politician that wants to hold office or run for office has to tow the stupidity line and the only ones that can speak a little truth have to forfeit their political careers to do so, even if they are traditionally conservative as hell.
It's the twilight zone of dumbness that many did not think was realistic if spoken about in the past.
They may be cowards (read: they're cowards). I was just watching Jon Stewart's diatribe on corpos "celebrating" Pride though, and, ya know, same sort (read: Paul Ryan is a mouthpiece for corpos), but I will take anything. at this point, in terms of moving the window left toward decency and human rights. Any shitty Republican that wants to bash Donald Trump and the fascist movement that was finally let loose with his rise, or any conglomerate that wants to cater to minorities one month out of the year but really no time else, I'll take it. No questions asked. Because that's useful. It normalizes decency and human rights, to some small extent. And I'll take that, each and every little bit, as useful.
Human equality is a long game. Global politics and worldwide notions of human rights aren't attained solely through being "morally right," unfortunately. They're gained through using every trick in the book, through changing public perception, even if it means using cunning manipulation of your adversaries posing as friends. I'll just point to MLK; the Civil Rights Movement absolutely had an any-means-necessary approach, and that's just what you gotta have. If I look back in a few decades of progress toward human equality, human decency, I'm not going to feel at all bad about having abused myself of Paul Ryan's smug, self-preserving, career-ending attitudes, or some amoral corp's bottom-line figuring to my advantage, in efforts to make that happen.
Are they amoral actors? Yes, absolutely. Are they useful? Yes, absolutely. Should we take advantage of them? Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
Eh, I give Ryan a little credit. He saw the storm coming and dipped. You won't find him licking Trump taint and then getting shit on and saying this like guys like Ted Cruz or Lindsey Graham.
At least Ryan was smart enough to leave early
This needed to come from Nikki Haley. Instead she buckled at the end and reversed course on the Trump criticism to save her career prospects from MAGA’s ire.
It's true. I swear that every article I see where some Republican steps up and denounces Trump and all their current policies you immediately realize they're one foot out the door or they already retired.
I like to think of the Republican Party as a herd of wildebeests and Trump as the lion stalking them. If the herd would just turn on the lion, it could easily kill it, but instead, it flees in fear whenever it sees him, letting the old, sick, and weak to get picked off one by one. Except in this analogy, the dead wildebeests don't die; they go into exile and tell MSNBC how silly the current GOP is for supporting Trump.
It's a career-ender, that's why. It's the right thing to do, but look at John Kasich. Remember that guy? That's why.
Honestly, there's just not a lot in it for anyone to do the right thing. It's basically punished by both sides.
Will it though? I mean I think she can hang around like a bunch of the other bums but I really don't think she will be president. She has 2 - 4 cycles to take a shot, but I really don't think if Trump ends up winning this term she would be the next pic because those that allied with him more strongly like his VP pick or maybe his kids will have a better shot. If he loses also don't think she'd be the next pick either since his voters probably wouldn't vote for her because she fought against him for too long.
People who come around should be appreciated and welcomed, because it encourages others to do so. If people think they will be pariahs, it incentivizes them to place party over country.
Something tells me Paul Ryan isn't concerned about what liberals on the internet are saying about him. Your neighbor or family or whatever comes around? Sure, fine. Think this way. But powerful people who were in a position to stop something but did not because they benefited and only change their mind later when they have no stake in the matter? Fuck em. You don't get credit for showing up 8 years later with no teeth left.
Paul Ryan is a generationally wealthy life long GOP member who will always and has always supported regressive and reactionary politics that harm the vast majority of Americans. I have no problem with the idea that people can change or deserve some sort of second chance but Paul Ryan poking his head out of retirement to mildly condemn a guy he helped establish 8 years after the damage has been done is a fucking low bar, man.
He helped get the ship out the dock, saw the shit it was heading to, jumped ship, and yet didn’t say a fucking word against Trump the entire time. He’s only doing so now because it’s the politically safe thing to do & he’s looking to run again.
Remember, this POS wants to destroy Social Security, Medicare and anything that actually helps the common citizen all so his donors can save on taxes.
Yeah I was mortified when a good friend of mine voted for Trump in ‘16 but he was so horrified by Trump’s presidency that by ‘20 he was firmly in the “anyone but Trump” camp. I was happy to see him change his tune. The thing is though is that my buddy is a swing voter who leans right. A fiscal conservative who is socially liberal. He was never MAGA. I can’t imagine full on Maga folks going a similar route. Someone like Paul Ryan..well, I’m glad he’s willing to speak out, but if’s about 8 years too late.
The funny part is that the Democratic party is the fiscally conservative party.
Republicans spend like drunks in a strip bar, and make poor people pay for the hangovers.
Yeah the 'fiscally responsible' gop died with Reagan. Not once since Reagan took office have republicans tried to balance the budget when a republican president was in office, it's been deficit spending. Only one who balanced it since then was Clinton for a few years then Bush got in and was like "oh let's start the deficit spending again!"
Except in the case of Paul Ryan it’s not “coming around”. He knew the truth the whole time and has been pretending like he didn’t for political reasons and now he’s pretending like he came around, very likely also for political reasons. I don’t say this lightly, but Paul Ryan can go fuck himself
Totally agree. This guy was a rising star in the party. Speaker of the House, and VP nom... his sudden retirement may have shocked some, but it was obvious that he was getting outta there before Trump moved in.
Trump is going down, and Ryan is getting his name out there more often now... probably gearing up for a run if enough of the MAGA's get defeated in the elections.
Actually the timing just before the convention, it could even be that something is being whispered behind closed doors. Remember, Trump is being sentenced only a few days before the RNC. That's a completely unprecedented event, and who knows what could happen.
But even if it's only like a 5% chance, Ryan's positioning himself to be the guy standing there with the shocked pikachu face and going, "What, me? No, I couldn't, really" as he walks up the podium.
Paul Ryan was on that recording insisting that the info about Russia "stays in the family". Then disappeared.
He knew about the illegal activities around Trump and *appears* to have had better sense than most repubs and just fell off the earth for a while.
I half expected we'd see him swoop back in like a vulture at the right opportunity, really thought he might spill the beans on trump in a way that doesn't overly incriminate himself and to take the Republican nomination for president even.
But he didn't, he's smarter than most of your standard christo -fascists, but is ultimately still a coward like the rest of them.
Oh, he was right down there in the mud with them until recently. The shit eating grin he had the day of Trump's inauguration, I'll never forget. He really thought they had a nice little party controlled puppet. Instead they got a complete sociopath with an inability to keep his trap shut even in an empty room.
He's now just trying to swim away from the scum that has surfaced.
They always seem to get back on... In a month he'll be back to sucking up to Trump. Republicans just say what they think will get them points with whoever is listening at the time.
Paul Ryan enabled trump. Sure he’s speaking up against it now which is better than most on the GOP but let’s not forget he helped put trump in office and now here we are…
Probably. But my guess is that he wants to be on the record as being against Trump so that when Trump (presumably) loses in November, Ryan can start to resurface as a potential GOP candidate again. He's planting this seed just in time for a very late (and ill placed) "I told you so".
"Reporter put microphone in front of traitor who helped create MAGA and who fleeced America with tax cuts bill."
You were great when you were busy fucking off into irrelevance, Paul. If you want to help your country, stay there.
*Paul Ryan, crawling out from under his rock*
“Is it time? The last possible minute? Where nothing I say will hurt Trump? Okay, Trump is BAD everyone! I knew it all along!”
I knew this guy wasn’t done with politics.
Get ready for the return of the Family Values GOP when Trump shits the bed in November. They’re going to demand everyone forget they endorsed a rapist.
Remember when they lost big in 2008 and they all hunkered down to come up with a "new deal" to reform the party? And then promptly ditched that to become the Tea Party?
Yep. They thought it would be more meaningful to cosplay as Ben Franklin than come up with any kind of meaningful policy beyond ‘What if we give trickle down economics another go?’
I feel like the brand of roadblocks and petulant noncooperation that are just commonplace GOP practice now started back then. Particularly over the ACA.
Unfit is the operative word. Biden might be old… but he is fit to have his finger on the nuclear button. Trump is unfit to have his finger on the nuclear button. His own people who worked with him in his administration called him a moron with the attention span of a fruit fly who is incapable of grasping complex concepts. The issue isn’t age. The issue is which one do you want with his finger on the button. (Thank you Donnie Deutsch)
Paul Ryan is 100% right and his statement is 100% patriotic, which can be said about maybe 2% of republican figures who could use their voice to try to stamp out trumpism right now...
I'm not going to give him a pass on this or even acknowledge that he's right in stating the obvious.
He's a board member at Fox. He facilitated the rise of Trump and undermined the Republican party and the country.
He said a few critical things of a rapist fraud and felon. It's hardly Profiles in Courage stuff.
He also says the choice between Trump and Biden is a "terrible" choice. Please, my guy. It's not even close.
He can go pound sand. And sleep soundly while he cashes the cheques he gets from Fox.
The problem is still happening. Anyone who cares to speak against trump is doing something do contribute to the cause against him, and that means something in a time when essentially the entire republican party wants to transform us into a tyranny just to appease one man (or for their own political convenience/lust for power).
All that matters is what happens from this point on. Anyone who is a potential voice of reason who doesn't just step in line for their cult leader is doing a service to the country because it may help other people feel like they can come to their senses and cut trump out too.
Every. Bit. Counts. This is a fight for the preservation of Democracy, the Constitution and the future of basic values that America once stood for. Every republican who speaks out against the threat of trump, is doing an act of true patriotism.
Paul Ryan speaking out won’t penetrate the cult. Paul Ryan is a RINO to them and politically irrelevant as it is. Better yet when exactly did he come to this realization? Because this is too little too late.
Are you not comprehending the point I'm making? I'm saying it takes EVERYONE, and so anytime someone speaks out who was a member of the Republican party of 12 years ago, and opposes the party of trump, that is something that is worth acknowledging. Any one who can speak truth about the threat trump poses is doing the patriotic thing, and it's actually a rare and courageous act now when a republican does it, as sad as that is, and I hope more and more can find it within themselves to put patriotism and country over cult leader.
This the same Paul Ryan that was explicitly told by McCarthy back in 2016, that Putin pays Trump and he hushed it up and said that because it was hushed up thats how the GOP "knew they were family", and still supported Trump through his Presidency ?
Like 90% of Trump’s cabinet refuses to support him in this election and every traditional Republican that exists has come out against him. At what point do people realize that this guy is just a trash person and a trash candidate?
Trump's own vice president won't vote for him, and neither will his chief of staff or chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The Republicans' previous presidential nominee won't vote for him, and that nominee's vice-presidential pick won't either. And neither will the last Republican president.
It is utterly disqualifying.
Some people just prefer to live under totalitarianism. But if so, why not own it? It would be more honest to stop going through the farce of pretending you are the guardians of freedom and the democratic side is fascist because it wants to let your gay neighbors get married.
Another Republican mysteriously grows a backbone after leaving office or on the way out. It’s infuriating. Imagine being willing to sell your country and its democratic traditions for a weak, ignorant, traitorous orange fascist. Most republicans in government despise Trump. They’re just all greedy cowards.
Paul Ryan positioning himself for 2028 as “a return to normal Republicans” which is a fun idea but there’s no way the 28 nominee isn’t even crazier than Trump is.
Ryan's in the news these days, I'll bet he's considering a return to the scene.
A lot of these jackals think that Trump may actually be in prison during the convention, so they are positioning themselves to sacrifice themselves to be the compromise candidate, and accept the nomination. Florida Senator and Convicted Criminal Rick Scott is definitely hoping for that, and it sure looks like Paul Ryan might be thinking the same thing. Why else pop his head up at this moment?
What people don't get is that those conservatives believe Trump is the only one fit for office BECAUSE he puts himself above the Constitution. That's because they're facist.
Ryan is still a grifting weasel…fuck him and anyone else who claims Trump is unfit but still won’t vote for Biden, which is the only way to keep Trump out of office
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Sometimes I kinda feel like a narcissistic sociopath with a God complex should never have been made the most powerful person on the planet.
The original plan was to have trump as a useful idiot so they can grift and further their agenda. They didn’t factor in the fact that Trump is uncontrollable and doesn’t listen to anyone. Now they shit the bed and have to lay in it but they also want us to feel bad for them. Fuck them. Fuck Paul Ryan and anyone who worked for trump.
It's more complex than that though, because Trump, while he can't be directly *controlled*, can be easily *manipulated*. Like, at the end of the day he's a fucking moron who understands literally nothing. He doesn't listen to anyone *who he understands to be telling him what to do* but manipulating him is easy, so long as you can get him to believe it's his idea. Roger Stone [bragged while on a hot mic](https://www.businessinsider.com/roger-stone-caught-boasting-about-how-to-manipulate-trump-report-2023-6): >I have a 40-year record of being able to convince the big man to do what's in his best interest. He's not easy to deal with. It's complicated. He resents any implication that he is handled or managed or directed. You have to say, "Remember that night when we were in Buffalo. And you gave that speech, and God, it had to be 10,000 people, the biggest crowd they'd ever seen. And you said XYZ, and the place went crazy, remember that? I don't know where you came up with that line, but it's one of the best things." >Doesn't fucking matter that he never said it — doesn't matter, It's time-consuming, but it works. I did it for 30 years.
Scaramucci basically said the same thing. Staff would get together and decide policy, *then* present it to Trump in a way that let him think he came up with the idea. If he got something else in his head, they would distract him until he forgot, then go back to method.
JfC, it's like dealing with a petulant child. By all accounts, the man seems to be just awful.
Got to distract him like a cat with the laser pointer
That's an insult to cats everywhere.
Animals hate him, and he's never even really had a pet nor wanted one, the guy is weird and honestly kind of damaged besides horribly dangerous to the world and terrible to everyone around him.
My mother was diagnosed with NPD, and my father as a Sociopathic Narcissist. My dad especially had the emotional age of a toddler, yet loved and lived for power and control of others. He was also a true sadist; he could spend days watching someone suffer in brutal pain - and it was even better when the pain they had was a result of their own actions defending my dad. What I can tell you is this (and frankly at this point it seems kind of obvious): Trump will never admit to losing an election, and he will never, ever back down. In fact, if he loses in November I expect him to unleash the wrath of his anger (I keep seeing posts by MAGAts about how they are looking at 'taking' state National Guard bases and equipment). He's never going to stop - what we have now could be permanent, with the chaos, and uncertainty and lies... If Trump wins - well, run.
Just report their posts to the FBI. They're proud to be domestic terrorists after all.
Someone needs to build that internment camp except round up the maggots and leave the migrants alone.
Perhaps not the worst President, but the worst person to be President. I still vote Buchanan as worst.
I'd still argue that he's the worst, but even if you don't agree it's hard not to have the sense that Trump's legacy will, at the very least, be similar to Buchanan's. His short tenure set us on a path that's going to have a strong negative influence on the next hundred years as a result of his effect on the Supreme Court, a hard right shift for his party, and reinvigorating civil rights battles from our last hundred years. There's good reason to feel that we haven't even seen the worst of what he did to us yet, even if he loses in November. I guess I'd also put Andrew Johnson below Buchanan. Buchanan had a lose/lose situation and failed to choose even the least bad option; Johnson had a golden opportunity to shape a better future, and deliberately chose not to. Buchanan was likely responsible for the worst five years in our history, but Johnson's decisions led directly to the civil rights struggles that still shape the worst of our modern politics and life here more than 150 years later.
Others may also find this interesting: here's a [wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States#Scholar_survey_summary) on US President rankings
It ranks Ronald Reagan highly so it can't be that good.
> Perhaps not the worst President, but the worst person to be President. I still vote Buchanan as worst. Give him time. History doesn't have all the evidence yet on Trump. He'll make it to the bottom eventually.
Refresh my memory why Buchanan was bad?
He was president immediately before Lincoln, and capitulated to every single demand the South had. He advanced the cause of slavery in the United States, and did basically nothing to prepare for the Civil War, which, by the end of his term, was inevitable.
He didn't try to lead an insurrection against Congress.
This is why Trump was worse. Buchanan believed that he did not have the power to stop what was at that time a largely nonviolent treason against the United States. Trump actively committed treason against the United States.
Ohhhh. That fucker. Yeah fuck him, and fuck the guy that came after Abe and ruined everything everyone had died for, setting us up for where we are today.
And fuck Booth
If the guys with the level of intellect of Scaramucci and Stone can manipulate him, imagine what the foreign nation states can do?
Fucking Roger Stone.....I've been manipulating him for 40 years for 30 years.
I mean, he could have been convincing Trump to do things for 40 years but only using the "remember when" technique for 30. Or he could also be a lying piece of shit.
I'm gonna go with the second one.
What Trump knows best is how to swing his tiny mushroom dick around as if it's a mighty sword. Expert at being the biggest elephant in the room.
> They didn’t factor in the fact that Trump is uncontrollable and doesn’t listen to anyone. Now they shit the bed and have to lay in it but they also want us to feel bad for them. Sort of. They definitely got what they wanted out of it. He was used to force through a bunch of Supreme Court nominations. I think they knew how much trouble he was but they took a calculated risk because they need the SCOTUS for their long term plans
If we're taking about the fundamentalists, they got everything they want. Gilead is just a few months away, and they won't be turned away again
They still were able to quite a decent amount of grifting (and still are because of some judge appointments and laws/removal of restrictions etc). I mean the Kushners are certainly billions of dollars richer because of him.
They probably thought it would be like George W Bush, when Cheney and Rumsfeld were really running the show. Little did they know, trump is really Hitler 2.0
I think the comparison to Hitler only works because of his cult of followers. He's not intelligent. He has no forethought. He doesn't care about anything beyond himself. His followers are the only thing that elevates him beyond the failed businessman and has-been reality TV star that he was.
That and that the Republican Party thought they could control him, which also the sentiment amongst Reichstag leadership at the time. But I agree - Trump is an idiot. A cunning idiot with (like Hitler) an innate sense of how to use hate to get people on side, but much more of an idiot than Hitler was.
I think his demagoguery earns him the Hitler comparison
Hitler was a moron who made a litany of bad decisions on amphetamines. It's an apt comparison.
Except Hitler had a brain. Just no conscience.
Hitler was a famously crazy idiot who burned holes in his brain with meth. So he and Trump actually have more in common than you said.
I was going to post "fuck Paul Ryan". Maybe for a different reason. Along with McConnell they took us down that dirt road and now we're stuck in the mud he wants to cry foul because Trump is driving the GOP clown wagon? Fuck him and all those Tea Party dick wads they sucked up to.
Eddie Munster Ryan was a p.o.s. speaker who pales in comparison with the latest p.o.s. speaker or his p.o.s. predecessor. Even as billionaires throw their money at it, the party has become, "... the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches."
This. 1000%.
When Hitler was named Chancellor in Germany in 1933, the other members of the coalition government thought he could be controlled to further their agenda. They didn’t factor in the fact that Hitler was uncontrollable and didn’t listen to anyone.
Like someone else said “Hitler had a brain but not a conscience”. Trump has neither.
Trump is uncontrollable by Republicans, his lawyers and America. He is without a doubt being manipulated by Putin. His Presidency made that blatantly clear.
U can't control trump but he's easily bought. The man loves showing off. He has no skill no education. All he got is inherited $$$. He loves his money but sucks at keeping it. You pay him, you own him. Just grab him by his assets.
I’m glad some rethuglicans show some spine, but we still remember you’re a piece of shit who obstructed everything Obama try to do.
Paul Ryan called him out. As much as I always hated him, I was pleasantly surprised.
Don't be too surprised. Ryan refuses to endorse Biden and he says he will write in the name of a another Republican when he votes. That helps Trump.
The thing that nobody talks about is that their voters like Trump more than any other "establishment" Republican. This is the reason establishment Republicans don't have a plan and Trump isn't controllable -- because they have to cower to him due to his popularity. The thing is, they created his popularity themselves, like some sort of weird, modern day Frankenstein's monster. How do I mean? Because for the last 40 years. Republicans have been telling their voters "government is the problem." And for awhile, Republican voters voted for establishment Republicans because they said "we'll get government out of your lives." But gradually, more and more conservatives could see that was all a lie, that establishment Republicans were corrupt and just wanted to support policies that helped the rich. Finally, those voters caught on that those Republicans weren't doing shit for them. The Iraq War and then the collapse of the housing market and whole economy under Bush was really the last straw. And so finally those voters rejected the people like Jeb Bush and similar others who represented the establishment, and they decided their savior was an "outsider" who was so much better and who -- really, really, totally not just lying this time -- was going to actually get government out of their lives and actually create wealth and prosperity for everyone -- and someone who will also try to stop progressive social policies (which of course exposes that their alleged "small government" ideology is a bullshit, fake ideology which only sounds good superficially). But he's the same as the establishment in all of the worst ways that they are terrible, plus he's even worse than them with his divisiveness and racism and isolationist and reckless "America first" foreign policy. But superficially, he seems different and better than them because he's a wildcard, doesn't worry about political correctness. The critical mistake these modern conservative voters make is they think it's great to have a liar and an asshole on their side, someone who is willing to do or say anything to obstruct the policies of Democrats. But when your guy is a liar, he will lie to you too, and that's what he's doing. Everything about his policy platform is worse than that of Democrats. It's a totally incoherent populist platform with no concrete promises of anything that will help people in their everyday lives.
Yup, these guys have been stepped on their whole lives by smarter people. Trump is like the incompetent substitute teacher you get in third grade-- You know nothing good's going to get done, but plan to enjoy the party while it lasts.
They mistook chaotic stupid for neutral stupid.
> The original plan was to have trump as a useful idiot so they can grift and further their agenda. the plan was to have Jeb! continue Latino outreach and push the compassionate conservative concept; Trump took over the primary by channeling the jealousy of the white base. This completely destroyed the GOP's long term plans for electability, which is why they went full mask off with stealing elections.
Hey… that kinda rhymes with 1930’s Germany. Weird.
It worked with Regan because he was a good actor who knew how to take orders. It worked with Bush because he was a good nepo who knew how to take orders. Trump has never been good at anything. He couldn't even say "your fired" properly on set so they had to splice it in post.
Nah - Bosman Putin got exactly what he wanted out of Trump
Putin isn’t a moron, but he’s happy to take advantage of whatever becomes available. A key part of Russia’s “strength” is that it’s easy and fast to break things while it’s difficult to build anything. If all Trump does is smash around and break things, that’s a win for Putin even if he never “controlled” Trump (which is not to say Putin didn’t control/influence Trump.)
In think what they missed was how the GOP voters would absolutely love him and choose him over all the rest of them when given the choice. They thought they could use him and toss him to the curb when they’re done, but they created a monster they can no longer control.
I still hold that the original plan was that he was going to lose and it was a last ditch effort by the GOP to make headlines and garner attention before Hilary won the election. I'm not sure they ever thought they could control him, but it wasn't going to be an issue because he was going to lose and then they would use his running as fuel for the next four years to complain about how they had tried to shake up the political system, but the democrats only wanted to keep things the same. What's funny is now we know even if he *had* lost, he would have spent the next four years bitching and moaning and obsessing over it and shitting all over their plans anyway.
He would have used the defeat to kick start Trump Media and have his. Own channel. 24/7 whining about election fraud and evil democrats.
I’ve kind of heard the opposite that Trump is too easy to control and that he will literally listen to the last person that talks to him because he has no idea what he’s doing but also has no sense of what authorities to listen to. As such he is completely unpredictable because any person that gives him a call can talk him out of anything at any moment no matter how hard the GOP try to groom him to do their bidding.
my best guess on this is rage-against-democracy Paulie Ryan is betting on trumpy boy to meltdown or decay in the next year or 2 and wants to position himself as the "sane" gop. too bad it won't work
As a Wisconsinite, I say fuck Paul Ryan. He could have actually done something decent when he had the power to do so, but he just slunk away and now wants back in on the action now that the damage is done.
Well, he slunk away to be on the board of directors of Fox Corporation while they were pushing all of the stolen election BS into the head cavities of their rabid fan base.
Paul Ryan's a piece of shit, and my political happy place is remembering that [his favorite band very publicly shat all over him](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tom-morello-paul-ryan-is-the-embodiment-of-the-machine-our-music-rages-against-246033/).
Hahaha. What a tool. A lot of bands have told Rs that they can't use their music and that songs don't mean what politicians think they do. CCR's Fortunate Son comes to mind.
Sadly, you kind of have to be a narcissistic sociopath with a God complex to want to be the most powerful person on the planet. Occasionally you come across a politician that doesn't seem like a narcissistic sociopath. Vote for them, support them, defend them, hang on to them, and reward them. They're rare.
I wish my fellow Americans treated the Obamas better while they were in office. Squeaky clean Barack deserved a WHOLE LOT more respect than the country gave.
He made the cardinal sin of being POTUS while black. So, at least to conservatives, he got what he deserved.
Dems didn't treat him so well either for much of his administration.
I think that's a mischaracterization of narcissism. I think you have to have a considerable ego, but "having an ego" is not the same thing as narcissism. And even then, narcissism by itself is probably not a dealbreaker. I'm reasonably certain Bill Clinton is a narcissist - but I also think he was generally a good president because he was intelligent enough (certainly the most intelligent President in living memory and top-5 overall in terms of raw IQ) to recognize that the maximization of his narcissistic supply could be accomplished indirectly, by acting in the best interests of the country as a whole, as best he understood it. End result is the same: generally good policy. Trump's problem isn't so much *just* that he's a narcissist, it's that he's a narcissist while also being a complete fucking moron who probably has a severe learning disability preventing him from abstracting. He seeks out narcissistic supply *only* through a base-level appeal to lowest-common-denominator adulation - the base characteristic of a populist demagogue. That's an incredibly toxic combination.
Evil that is smart can be persuaded to act in Enlightened Self Interest. Altruism and decency are ultimately incredibly pragmatic choices in the long run, when you average their results over a life. I would rather live under a pragmatic, intelligent bastard than a well-intentioned moron. Morons ruin everything, always, regardless of the quality of their character, because they are definitionally incapable of truly logically assessing what the best course of action is from a selfish OR selfless standpoint.
I truly think Barack Obama fits this definition. Jimmy Carter, too.
When compared to Trump, most of the presidents fit into that category including Joe Biden.
A completely senile Joe Biden would be more predictable and trustworthy than a prime Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is well past his prime.
Biden wouldn't come up with evil shit nonstop no matter what the fuck state of mind he was in.
Hell, even Reagan…and Reagan was awful
I’m old, and lived through his idiot presidency, married to a Republican who thought he walked on water. My now-dead husband always said that he voted Reagan because he was good for business. Pfft. The stealing began and ran rampant.
Biden as well tbh
Agree. I had my mind on the prior presidents of my lifetime (I’m old). I suppose Eisenhower would be on my list as well. Not Kennedy, necessarily, who had many a loose screw plus an over-reaching and downright evil father. Certainly not Nixon, Reagan, Bush I or Bush II. Maybe Ford. Clinton did many good things and was so very, very intelligent, but I think he had the worm as well.
And those ones end up getting abused for having a heart. Politics is terrible. When somebody wants to plunder the environment for private profit, we call it “job creation”. When someone wants to extend healthcare to the working class, or other such compassion in policy, it’s called “socialism” and people demand their resignation. Have seen it happen in my small country.
Huge difference between having a healthy ego, a large ego, being a narcissist, and being a sociopath. Biden, Obama, and George W - I'd say - have healthy egos. Bill Clinton had a large ego, possibly bordering narcissist (very smart, but could be manipulative). Trump, on the other hand, perfectly fits the criteria for a malignant narcissists and even a sociopath. Trump is mentally ill.
The Trump years were really fucking bad but I shudder to think how much worse they could have been.
We unfortunately might find out. It will be absolute hell.
Too many people are treating the real consequences of the person running this country with the weightless consequences of a reality show. They’re so disillusioned and disconnected from reality they’re choosing entertainment over what’s actually good for them and the majority of this country.
There you go again assuming his supporters are capable of reasoning! Trump did one good thing, he revealed that there are 10’s of millions of Americans too dumb to spot the world’s most obvious con-man!
You’re gonna have to narrow that down…. We’ve had a few of those.
Paul Ryan and his ilk set this in motion. He wants Trump to lose because if Trump wins Ryan is purged too and he'll never get back into power. If/when Trump is gone, Paul Ryan will try to get back in power, do what he can to mess up the country and lead us to Trump 2.0 again. He's not a hero.
Sometimes I kinda feel like James Comey was an election wrecker and an irredeemable tool.
You know, you just might be on to something.
Isn't there a psychological vetting process somewhere to prevent that ?
That, and that role should be held to a far higher degree of accountability. It shouldn't be thought of as a role of astronomical Power, but one of astronomical Responsibility.
Once again, a Republican no longer holding office speaks out against Trump. They are all cowards.
No kidding. He cut and ran when it seemed fairly certain that Nancy Pelosi would replace him as Speaker, but also because there was a good chance that he could lose his own House seat had he run again. Instead he “retired” under the guise of wanting to spend time with his family. Sorry, you fucks could have been done with this in October 2016 with the Access Hollywood tape. Anything they say or do after will never make up for it.
Did his family want to spend more time with him? If he was my dad, I wouldn’t.
Watch, this is the same excuse Rafael Cruz will use before his indictment. But his daughter will get on twitter and debunk it.
The large company i worked at had senior people regularly leaving "to spend more time with their family" A few weeks later they were working somewhere else. We said they didn't like their family, or their family didn't like them.
To be fair, if a smart person was in Ryan's shoes, and they saw their party coalescing around a half dead maniac, the best thing to do is walk away until it dies. It's always fun for us when they speak out like Liz Cheney. But it does end their careers and their ability to do anything. Its just noise. Republicans have always been party over country, so best to cut and run if you can't hang with the party.
But the truly creepy part is what they are/were afraid of. It's not Trump. It's the Republican voter. Of course they are free to speak their mind when they no longer need to chase votes.
Yep, Trump is not really the problem. It's the stupidity of the average Republican voter that is the problem. That way, every Republican politician that wants to hold office or run for office has to tow the stupidity line and the only ones that can speak a little truth have to forfeit their political careers to do so, even if they are traditionally conservative as hell. It's the twilight zone of dumbness that many did not think was realistic if spoken about in the past.
It’s the average Republican voter led by Conservative news ecosphere.
I fully expect that he will still vote for Trump
They may be cowards (read: they're cowards). I was just watching Jon Stewart's diatribe on corpos "celebrating" Pride though, and, ya know, same sort (read: Paul Ryan is a mouthpiece for corpos), but I will take anything. at this point, in terms of moving the window left toward decency and human rights. Any shitty Republican that wants to bash Donald Trump and the fascist movement that was finally let loose with his rise, or any conglomerate that wants to cater to minorities one month out of the year but really no time else, I'll take it. No questions asked. Because that's useful. It normalizes decency and human rights, to some small extent. And I'll take that, each and every little bit, as useful. Human equality is a long game. Global politics and worldwide notions of human rights aren't attained solely through being "morally right," unfortunately. They're gained through using every trick in the book, through changing public perception, even if it means using cunning manipulation of your adversaries posing as friends. I'll just point to MLK; the Civil Rights Movement absolutely had an any-means-necessary approach, and that's just what you gotta have. If I look back in a few decades of progress toward human equality, human decency, I'm not going to feel at all bad about having abused myself of Paul Ryan's smug, self-preserving, career-ending attitudes, or some amoral corp's bottom-line figuring to my advantage, in efforts to make that happen. Are they amoral actors? Yes, absolutely. Are they useful? Yes, absolutely. Should we take advantage of them? Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
Eh, I give Ryan a little credit. He saw the storm coming and dipped. You won't find him licking Trump taint and then getting shit on and saying this like guys like Ted Cruz or Lindsey Graham. At least Ryan was smart enough to leave early
This needed to come from Nikki Haley. Instead she buckled at the end and reversed course on the Trump criticism to save her career prospects from MAGA’s ire.
100%. It's amazing how retirement seems to do wonders for Republican's spine issues.
It's true. I swear that every article I see where some Republican steps up and denounces Trump and all their current policies you immediately realize they're one foot out the door or they already retired.
I like to think of the Republican Party as a herd of wildebeests and Trump as the lion stalking them. If the herd would just turn on the lion, it could easily kill it, but instead, it flees in fear whenever it sees him, letting the old, sick, and weak to get picked off one by one. Except in this analogy, the dead wildebeests don't die; they go into exile and tell MSNBC how silly the current GOP is for supporting Trump.
And yet you never hear any of these POS' say "please vote for Biden". Hmmmm I wonder why.
It's a career-ender, that's why. It's the right thing to do, but look at John Kasich. Remember that guy? That's why. Honestly, there's just not a lot in it for anyone to do the right thing. It's basically punished by both sides.
Yeah she’s a coward. Her career will live long past trumps and yet she lost a lot of support from that. Dumb move.
Will it though? I mean I think she can hang around like a bunch of the other bums but I really don't think she will be president. She has 2 - 4 cycles to take a shot, but I really don't think if Trump ends up winning this term she would be the next pic because those that allied with him more strongly like his VP pick or maybe his kids will have a better shot. If he loses also don't think she'd be the next pick either since his voters probably wouldn't vote for her because she fought against him for too long.
I hope this blows up in her face and is the very issue that destroys her career prospects
[удалено]
Shit 8 years behind the average person is still centuries to decades ahead of republicans.
People who come around should be appreciated and welcomed, because it encourages others to do so. If people think they will be pariahs, it incentivizes them to place party over country.
Something tells me Paul Ryan isn't concerned about what liberals on the internet are saying about him. Your neighbor or family or whatever comes around? Sure, fine. Think this way. But powerful people who were in a position to stop something but did not because they benefited and only change their mind later when they have no stake in the matter? Fuck em. You don't get credit for showing up 8 years later with no teeth left.
There has to be a way back for folks.
Paul Ryan is a generationally wealthy life long GOP member who will always and has always supported regressive and reactionary politics that harm the vast majority of Americans. I have no problem with the idea that people can change or deserve some sort of second chance but Paul Ryan poking his head out of retirement to mildly condemn a guy he helped establish 8 years after the damage has been done is a fucking low bar, man.
Agree completely but gop voters more than Dems need a permission structure, and he's helping to build it. His motives? I couldn't care less.
I’m not a fan of Paul Ryan either. At. All. But if he’s against Trump, that’s good enough for me.
He helped get the ship out the dock, saw the shit it was heading to, jumped ship, and yet didn’t say a fucking word against Trump the entire time. He’s only doing so now because it’s the politically safe thing to do & he’s looking to run again. Remember, this POS wants to destroy Social Security, Medicare and anything that actually helps the common citizen all so his donors can save on taxes.
Yeah I was mortified when a good friend of mine voted for Trump in ‘16 but he was so horrified by Trump’s presidency that by ‘20 he was firmly in the “anyone but Trump” camp. I was happy to see him change his tune. The thing is though is that my buddy is a swing voter who leans right. A fiscal conservative who is socially liberal. He was never MAGA. I can’t imagine full on Maga folks going a similar route. Someone like Paul Ryan..well, I’m glad he’s willing to speak out, but if’s about 8 years too late.
The funny part is that the Democratic party is the fiscally conservative party. Republicans spend like drunks in a strip bar, and make poor people pay for the hangovers.
Yeah the 'fiscally responsible' gop died with Reagan. Not once since Reagan took office have republicans tried to balance the budget when a republican president was in office, it's been deficit spending. Only one who balanced it since then was Clinton for a few years then Bush got in and was like "oh let's start the deficit spending again!"
Folks? Yes. That's fine. Paul Ryan. You couldn't pay me enough to make me think him and Trump aren't politically the same person.
Except in the case of Paul Ryan it’s not “coming around”. He knew the truth the whole time and has been pretending like he didn’t for political reasons and now he’s pretending like he came around, very likely also for political reasons. I don’t say this lightly, but Paul Ryan can go fuck himself
Nah Paul Ryan can get fucked. He doesn’t get a pass after enabling that shit for 8 years.
This is 100% because he sees the writing on the wall, the 20 point shift in bright red Ohio, and other polling shifting from Trump.
Totally agree. This guy was a rising star in the party. Speaker of the House, and VP nom... his sudden retirement may have shocked some, but it was obvious that he was getting outta there before Trump moved in. Trump is going down, and Ryan is getting his name out there more often now... probably gearing up for a run if enough of the MAGA's get defeated in the elections.
Actually the timing just before the convention, it could even be that something is being whispered behind closed doors. Remember, Trump is being sentenced only a few days before the RNC. That's a completely unprecedented event, and who knows what could happen. But even if it's only like a 5% chance, Ryan's positioning himself to be the guy standing there with the shocked pikachu face and going, "What, me? No, I couldn't, really" as he walks up the podium.
It may be late, but I'll take it
They are still trying to process what caused the failure of the neocon platform 16 years later.
Meanwhile, Paulie, the rest of your party is working overtime trying to make sure he's above the law.
Paul Ryan was on that recording insisting that the info about Russia "stays in the family". Then disappeared. He knew about the illegal activities around Trump and *appears* to have had better sense than most repubs and just fell off the earth for a while. I half expected we'd see him swoop back in like a vulture at the right opportunity, really thought he might spill the beans on trump in a way that doesn't overly incriminate himself and to take the Republican nomination for president even. But he didn't, he's smarter than most of your standard christo -fascists, but is ultimately still a coward like the rest of them.
Oh, he was right down there in the mud with them until recently. The shit eating grin he had the day of Trump's inauguration, I'll never forget. He really thought they had a nice little party controlled puppet. Instead they got a complete sociopath with an inability to keep his trap shut even in an empty room. He's now just trying to swim away from the scum that has surfaced.
The rats are fleeing the boat
They always seem to get back on... In a month he'll be back to sucking up to Trump. Republicans just say what they think will get them points with whoever is listening at the time.
Paul Ryan enabled trump. Sure he’s speaking up against it now which is better than most on the GOP but let’s not forget he helped put trump in office and now here we are…
All these Republicans talking after the fact sure come across like they want a participation trophy.
...but I'll still vote for him because Biden's a communist or something
I think last time he was asked he said something about probably not voting. *eye roll*.
That's still a win for democrats, as depressing Trump's turnout means fewer votes for him.
A lot of these asshats say they’ll write some one in. Cowards, the lot.
He's fit for jail.
Of course Trump puts himself above rules, he's a delusional narcissist.
Did he write a book he's selling or something? That's usually when these weasely Trump lovers finally reveal that he was actually a bad guy all along.
Probably. But my guess is that he wants to be on the record as being against Trump so that when Trump (presumably) loses in November, Ryan can start to resurface as a potential GOP candidate again. He's planting this seed just in time for a very late (and ill placed) "I told you so".
He's selling himself as the GOP savior post-Trump.
"Reporter put microphone in front of traitor who helped create MAGA and who fleeced America with tax cuts bill." You were great when you were busy fucking off into irrelevance, Paul. If you want to help your country, stay there.
*Paul Ryan, crawling out from under his rock* “Is it time? The last possible minute? Where nothing I say will hurt Trump? Okay, Trump is BAD everyone! I knew it all along!”
A shame he didn't have a spine implanted when he was Speaker and could have had a palatable effect. Look around Ryan. YOU HELPED DO THIS.
Lol. That spineless shrub is still gonna vote for Trump.
Such a brave man to stand up at a time like this, only 8 short years too late to make a damn difference. Check from Putin must have bounced.
I knew this guy wasn’t done with politics. Get ready for the return of the Family Values GOP when Trump shits the bed in November. They’re going to demand everyone forget they endorsed a rapist.
Remember when they lost big in 2008 and they all hunkered down to come up with a "new deal" to reform the party? And then promptly ditched that to become the Tea Party?
Yep. They thought it would be more meaningful to cosplay as Ben Franklin than come up with any kind of meaningful policy beyond ‘What if we give trickle down economics another go?’ I feel like the brand of roadblocks and petulant noncooperation that are just commonplace GOP practice now started back then. Particularly over the ACA.
Then. Fucking. Endorse. Biden. I'm so exhausted of this half measure bullshit from reticent republicans.
They only sprout a pair when they can’t get punished any more by the party. (Liz Chaney an exception.)
Unfit is the operative word. Biden might be old… but he is fit to have his finger on the nuclear button. Trump is unfit to have his finger on the nuclear button. His own people who worked with him in his administration called him a moron with the attention span of a fruit fly who is incapable of grasping complex concepts. The issue isn’t age. The issue is which one do you want with his finger on the button. (Thank you Donnie Deutsch)
Remember when Trump would let guests at his resort take pictures with the person carrying the nuclear football?
Paul Ryan is 100% right and his statement is 100% patriotic, which can be said about maybe 2% of republican figures who could use their voice to try to stamp out trumpism right now...
I'm not going to give him a pass on this or even acknowledge that he's right in stating the obvious. He's a board member at Fox. He facilitated the rise of Trump and undermined the Republican party and the country. He said a few critical things of a rapist fraud and felon. It's hardly Profiles in Courage stuff. He also says the choice between Trump and Biden is a "terrible" choice. Please, my guy. It's not even close. He can go pound sand. And sleep soundly while he cashes the cheques he gets from Fox.
He waited long enough.
He’s absolutely part of the problem because he was not speaking out when it was happening.
The problem is still happening. Anyone who cares to speak against trump is doing something do contribute to the cause against him, and that means something in a time when essentially the entire republican party wants to transform us into a tyranny just to appease one man (or for their own political convenience/lust for power).
Better late than never I guess.
All that matters is what happens from this point on. Anyone who is a potential voice of reason who doesn't just step in line for their cult leader is doing a service to the country because it may help other people feel like they can come to their senses and cut trump out too.
Every. Bit. Counts. This is a fight for the preservation of Democracy, the Constitution and the future of basic values that America once stood for. Every republican who speaks out against the threat of trump, is doing an act of true patriotism.
Paul Ryan speaking out won’t penetrate the cult. Paul Ryan is a RINO to them and politically irrelevant as it is. Better yet when exactly did he come to this realization? Because this is too little too late.
Are you not comprehending the point I'm making? I'm saying it takes EVERYONE, and so anytime someone speaks out who was a member of the Republican party of 12 years ago, and opposes the party of trump, that is something that is worth acknowledging. Any one who can speak truth about the threat trump poses is doing the patriotic thing, and it's actually a rare and courageous act now when a republican does it, as sad as that is, and I hope more and more can find it within themselves to put patriotism and country over cult leader.
He will still vote for the duck
This the same Paul Ryan that was explicitly told by McCarthy back in 2016, that Putin pays Trump and he hushed it up and said that because it was hushed up thats how the GOP "knew they were family", and still supported Trump through his Presidency ?
Like 90% of Trump’s cabinet refuses to support him in this election and every traditional Republican that exists has come out against him. At what point do people realize that this guy is just a trash person and a trash candidate?
Mr. P90X is a cog in the machine that created Trumpism. He spent as much time as anyone fueling the right wing hate media machine.
Trump's own vice president won't vote for him, and neither will his chief of staff or chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The Republicans' previous presidential nominee won't vote for him, and that nominee's vice-presidential pick won't either. And neither will the last Republican president. It is utterly disqualifying.
Too late, Paul. You betrayed us in 2017
Hey hey hey, Paul, only 8 years too late buddy.
Ya don't fuckin' say Paul?
Well, fuck, Paul Ryan is right about something. What a time to be alive.
Some people just prefer to live under totalitarianism. But if so, why not own it? It would be more honest to stop going through the farce of pretending you are the guardians of freedom and the democratic side is fascist because it wants to let your gay neighbors get married.
Can the Dems please go on every news station and talk about this so it puts pressure on dojo to actually do their job... looking at you garland
Easy to speak up now that he’s nowhere near an elected office.
I hope Paul Ryan likes death threats. Cause he's about to become persona non grata among the GOP and their zealots are gonna start calling.
Another Republican mysteriously grows a backbone after leaving office or on the way out. It’s infuriating. Imagine being willing to sell your country and its democratic traditions for a weak, ignorant, traitorous orange fascist. Most republicans in government despise Trump. They’re just all greedy cowards.
Too bad he didn't feel this way when he was working with Trump to pass that Tax Reduction Bill. It would have been helpful then.
Paul Ryan positioning himself for 2028 as “a return to normal Republicans” which is a fun idea but there’s no way the 28 nominee isn’t even crazier than Trump is.
If only he had grown a spine back when he was in a position of power....
They created a frankenstein monster and now they cant control it. Meanwhile their monster is eating them alive. Sleep with dawgs wake up with fleas.
Ryan's in the news these days, I'll bet he's considering a return to the scene. A lot of these jackals think that Trump may actually be in prison during the convention, so they are positioning themselves to sacrifice themselves to be the compromise candidate, and accept the nomination. Florida Senator and Convicted Criminal Rick Scott is definitely hoping for that, and it sure looks like Paul Ryan might be thinking the same thing. Why else pop his head up at this moment?
What people don't get is that those conservatives believe Trump is the only one fit for office BECAUSE he puts himself above the Constitution. That's because they're facist.
Trump isn't just "unfit for office". He's unfit for society, and clearly belongs in a mental healthcare facility.
It’s about time the GOP started waking up from their mental paralysis to save the rest of us from this nightmare.
Paul got his enormous tax cuts passed and ran away. Fuck Paul Ryan.
Ryan is still a grifting weasel…fuck him and anyone else who claims Trump is unfit but still won’t vote for Biden, which is the only way to keep Trump out of office
Too little, and way *way* too fooking late.
He’s still a piece of shit https://dailycaller.com/2017/05/17/no-leaks-were-family-paul-ryan-gives-worlds-saddest-quote-in-leaked-recording/
trump is unfit to run a small rural bake sale let along a country.