Paul Ryan Claims “If we make it an ideas contest, we win.”

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:44 pm

It follows logically that if Republicans have abandoned reality and facts that the next logical step is to pretend, “If we make it an ideas contest, we win.” Right. But to have an ideas contest, you have to actually have some ideas.

Paul Ryan seemed completely unaware of this fact as he sat down to talk to The Blaze. The Speaker’s office reported that,

Ryan was not shy about acknowledging the GOP’s divided state in his conversation with The Blaze, but stressed the solution would be born out of policy — not personality.

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Asked, for instance, whether he thought former President Bill Clinton’s personal history was “fair game” in the 2016 election, as Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has said, the speaker responded that he doesn’t “even think of that stuff.”

“All I care about is making this an ideas contest,” he said.

Do you remember the last time Republicans had an idea beyond saying ‘no’ to Obama?

Democrats say, “Let’s fix the environment.” Republicans say, “Nah, leave it like it is.”

Democrats say, “Let’s fix Wall Street.” Republicans say, “Nah, leave it like it is.”

Democrats say, “Let’s fix gun laws and protect people.” Republicans say, “Nah, leave it like it is.”

Saying ‘no’ is not an idea. Never has been. Never will be.

Yet Ryan explained that he was “consumed” with thinking about how to present policy proposals to the public, aimed at tackling issues ranging from the economy and national security.

“All those other personal things I could care less about. To me, if we make this a personality contest, we lose. If we make it an ideas contest, we win. That’s just the way I see it.”

Well, at least Ryan is not falling into that trap of Rand Paul’s, where the solution to all Republican problems is being more likable or wear jeans while you screw people. But ideas? Don’t make us laugh. What he claims are ideas have already been annihilated by Robert Reich.

What kind of sense does all this ranting about a weak economy make when unemployment under Obama is lower than at any time under Reagan? If Reagan is the Republican ideal, Ryan and his fellow Republicans ought to be rallying around the president rather than attacking him.

But reality, facts, plans and principles mean nothing to the GOP.

It’s nice that Chris Wallace hammered Ted Cruz on his lie about job growth and Obamacare but Paul Ryan and the rest of the GOP are saying the same thing. So is Wallace’s own network.

The entire conservative apparatus seems to be operating somewhere in the La-La Land Zone, with Ryan’s office telling us that when “Pressed as to whether a largely angry Republican base is more interested in personality than policy, Ryan gave a blunt response”:

“Anger is not a plan. Anger is not a principle. Anger is not enough,” he said. “I think as leaders it is our obligation to challenge this energy into a constructive use so we can get a mandate to fix the country’s big problems.”

“So yes, policies do not sell as well. They don’t get as much clicks and they don’t get as much news. That shouldn’t deter us. That should just motivate us to work harder. To have a serious and sober conversation with our citizens.”

Work harder. Oh that rough schedule of an average of 28 hours a week must be a killer, most of it spent trying to defund Obamacare and Planned Parenthood, and coming up with solutions for problems that don’t exist.

Ryan wants you to think he’s working hard to give you a “bold, pro-growth” agenda but like Boehner, his entire agenda amounts to saying ‘no’ every time Obama says ‘yes.’

“Anger is not a plan,” said the Speaker of the Republican Party, which has made it’s whole platform and agenda about hate and fear. So apparently when he says he wants to make this an “ideas contest” the ideas he is talking about are more hate and fear.

Well, it has the virtue of consistency, at least.

Consistent also is the desire to blame President Obama for the GOP’s problems, Ryan telling The Blaze that yes, GOP leaders “drifted from our principles some time ago” but, he insisted,

“I think you combine that with the fact that you have a dedicated, dogmatic progressive president who got reelected and who is taking the country a direction we don’t like, who is untethering us from the Constitution — that makes for a very combustible mixture. It makes for a very anxious time.”

Obama didn’t make the GOP crazy. They built that on their own. It isn’t just Ryan, of course. His plan to replace Obamacare is no better than Donald Trump’s “We’ll work something out.”

But this is not just a simple matter of a Republican rejection of reality and the substitution of their own fantasies. As Noam Chomsky told Huffington Post, their refusal to face the facts about climate change and other issues make the GOP a “serious danger to human survival.”

So it’s a big deal when Ryan says he wants to make this about ideas, because not only has he no ideas, but his complete lack of ideas, and his appeal to false premises every time he tries to make an argument, doom all of us to destruction.

He says anger is not a plan, and he is at least right about that. It’s a shame then that behind all the fantasy bluster that anger is all he has.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.