House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has been spending his finals months in Congress on a farewell tour decrying current "tribal identity politics" that are more about being against a common enemy than being unified behind a common dogma, Vox reported Monday.
But Ryan has been quiet about his role over the past two years in allowing this to happen, according to Vox's Tara Golshan. As Speaker, Ryan focused on passing legislation in line with his conservative values, while ignoring or issuing only mild scoldings to President Donald Trump concerning ethics concerns and breaches of decorum.
Ryan's strategy did npt work, because Trump has buried traditional conservative ideals by ignoring any attempt at "small government," being restrictionist on trade, and taking an anti-immigration position.
Trump has also made a distant memory of Republicans' 2012 election defeat soul-searching that the party had to appeal more to black and Latino voters.
In his transition to private life, Ryan says he knows what Trump means for the Republican Party.
"We used to talk about Western civilization, which to us meant these classic liberal ideas, and now the 'blood and soil' guys have sort of hijacked the term," Ryan said, passively acknowledging the elevated platform the Trump presidency has given to white supremacists.
Ryan is "deeply troubled by the state of affairs in the country," according to Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., a more moderate Republican who lost re-election. "I know he's gotten criticisms for not being outspoken enough, but he's been balancing many interests and priorities over the last two years. But now he's going to be a private citizen; he's going to go back to what's truly most important to him at heart."
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