Ryan caves in to Trump
Say it isn’t so!
In this awful time for our nation, House Speaker Paul Ryan has made things worse, demonstrating that he is just another politician rather than a man of character, decency, and principle.
Mr. Ryan’s endorsement of Donald Trump for president is stunning and outrageous to fair-minded Americans of all parties who wanted to believe that the speaker is a patriot who would place the country first.
Donald Trump is not one who believes in the traditional tenets of the Republican Party, the candidate whose economic “plan” of “voodoo” is laughed at by economists as it would throw the budget wildly out of balance, adding trillions of dollars to the deficit, precisely what Speaker Ryan has made a career of railing against. More importantly, each time he opens his mouth, Trump has demonstrated himself to be entirely unqualified to hold any office and certainly not to have the ability to launch a nuclear attack against a foreign leader who might dare to offend the thin-skinned “leader.”
The coarse, crude, vulgar man who seeks to insult his way to the presidency now has the imprimatur of one of the most powerful Republican leaders in the nation.
I would not have reasonably expected Speaker Ryan to urge Americans to choose Hillary Clinton for president, the lesser of the evils by far, but he could have made a powerful statement and remained true to his principles by refusing to make an endorsement rather than to hitch his wagon to the candidate of hatred and intolerance who bullies and stereotypes.
Donald Trump is not taken seriously and is reviled by members of the electorate who fairly process and evaluate all that he has done to render himself as public enemy number one. Speaker Ryan now should suffer the same fate, serious consequences for selling out. How does he look at himself in the mirror? How does he explain to his children that he espouses the election of the bull in the china shop, the epitome of the ugly American in every way, the prospect of whose election as president has shaken the free world?
Is it any wonder that Congress is despised and that cynicism and apathy are raging?
Speaker Ryan and his party deserve to suffer an electoral landslide defeat which will cripple the GOP for years. It is a party that is wholly undeserving of the confidence of the American people.
Oren M. Spiegler is a resident of Upper St. Clair.