Paul Ryan Emerges From His Political Grave To Urge GOP To Return To Reaganism

Who would you prefer to be the role model for the next generation of Republican Party leaders?

Trump 50%
Reagan 21%
Haley 6%
George W. Bush 5%
George H.W. Bush 3%
Liz Cheney 2%

.@Reuters/@Ipsos, Among Republicans, 5/7-10https://t.co/znHgP62EJl

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) May 26, 2021

I think that Paul Ryan has a long way to go.

Republicans don’t even want to return to Reaganism. Paul Ryan’s agenda was a loser that lost the House of Representatives in 2018. Virtually all of the Reaganites in the GOP are over the age of 45.

Los Angeles Times:

“WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, once a rising star of the Republican party who lost the battle over the soul of the GOP to Donald Trump, will urge his party Thursday to end its preoccupation with the former president and revive its commitment to conservative values.

After years of laying low and only rarely publicly challenging Trump, Ryan, in an evening speech at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, will describe conservatives as at “a crossroads.”

“And here’s one reality we have to face: If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we’re not going anywhere,” Ryan is expected to say, according to excerpts released in advance. “Voters looking for Republican leaders want to see independence and mettle.” …”

To be brutally honest, it is mainstream conservatism that is the political albatross for the GOP, not populism. The things which the populists who backed Trump wanted to do which cut against Republican orthodoxy – protect American jobs from Chinese competition, secure the Mexican border, withdraw from stupid wars in the Middle East – are things which were and remain broadly popular.

What do American voters dislike about the Republican Party that keeps it stuck at 40% of the electorate? Where do we even start? Ryancare? The 2017 tax cuts? Mitch McConnell’s $600 stimulus check which lost the Senate to the Democrats? Funding infrastructure with a gas tax on working class voters? Opposing Joe Biden’s “premature withdrawal” from Afghanistan?