An imagined memo from Speaker Paul Ryan this morning…
To: House Republicans
From: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan
Re: Trump…
Hey Folks —
None of us thought we’d have to deal with this today. We all know that Boehner had it right about Ted ‘Lucifer’ Cruz, but we at least thought he had what it took to drag the fight until California, maybe Cleveland. Or at least hoped that Cruz could force a second ballot where someone else could swoop in and save our beloved GOP from itself. We were hoping for someone less toxic, someone less divisive, someone who hasn’t alienated every single group of people we need to build a winning coalition in November. It could even have been someone who swore they don’t want the job, but who would reluctantly take one for the team if his Party begged him to do it. You know … me.
Well, that all came to a crashing, screeching halt Tuesday night in Indiana, when Donald Trump kicked the crap out of Ted Cruz and effectively sealed his path to the nomination.
Maybe I could have stopped this. In fact, I probably should have tried. I could have called Trump to the carpet by name, promised to not support him outright if he won the nomination because he was going to be a drag on the ticket.
Instead, I leaked an NRCC poll in January showing he was bad for down-ballot Republicans, held a bunch of press conferences where I kind of criticized Trump and made lots of cool (and probably really expensive) videos of my speeches. It was about the state of our politics, but I never actually attacked Trump. I could have sworn people knew what I was saying. Of course, every time I made one of these half-hearted attempts to stand up to Trump, I promptly blew it all to hell when I said I’d support him anyway if he won the nomination. In retrospect, that was my bad.
So, where do we go from here? After all, we all know Trump is bad for our party and for many of your reelections. He’ll drive women, Hispanics, millennials, independents and suburban voters away from us in droves – they’re either going to stay home or vote Democrat right down the ballot. This could cost us a lot of seats. How do we protect ourselves from the storm that’s coming?
- If you’ve promised to “support the nominee” and haven’t had to answer the question yet, I’m here to help. I’m doing to go on CNN this afternoon and tell the world that I’m not ready to endorse Trump yet. I’ll say Trump’s going to have to unify the party and run a campaign we can all believe in. See how that works? I’m actually being a coward and playing political games, but I’ll seem like a leader to at least some people. Feel free to follow my lead. After all, we’ve all publicly sworn that we’ll support the nominee. If I can do it – so can you (I think??). Join me in hiding. It’s going to be great.
- If you’ve promised to “support the nominee” and confirmed your support for him since Tuesday, to be honest, you’re kind of in a jam. Again, my recommendation is to say, “he’s going to have to earn my vote” and pray to your lucky stars it works for a few days. Cancel all future events for a little while. None of this will ultimately work, but you can get in a few more days of denial. I can only help you so much if you were stupid enough to answer your phones, guys.
- If you endorsed Trump outright, either before or after Indiana, go with God. You are a far braver person than me.
- Finally, if you’ve promised not to support Trump, I’m not sure how far that will get you. Are you trying to convince voters that you’re not a Republican? At this point, I guess, just keep doing what you’re doing and hope voters will forgive you for being the spineless politicians that you are.
In reality though, we’re all going to endorse Trump eventually. It’s his party now, folks. Like it or not, we let this happen, and now we have to live with it. #Trumpticket4lyfe
Next round’s on me.
Paul D. Ryan