Paul Ryan is – sort of, kind of – ready to call out Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican Party.
The former Speaker of the House plans to urge the GOP to reject the “populist appeal of one personality” in a speech tonight at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Yet, Ryan will reportedly stop short of explicitly using Trump’s name during his criticism.
“Once again, we conservatives find ourselves 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. Voters looking for Republican leaders want to see independence and mettle,” Ryan will say according to excerpts from the speech first obtained by Punchbowl News.
While Ryan’s rebuke of Trumpism is veiled, another section of the speech will praise the former president by name. “It was the populism of President Trump in action, tethered to conservative principles,” Ryan is expected to say in reference to what he calls “incredibly powerful and inclusive economic growth.”
Ryan plans to criticize President Biden, saying he is “pursuing an agenda more leftist than any president in my lifetime.”
But Ryan will urge Republicans to shy away from the culture wars: “As the left gets more ‘woke,’ the rest of America is getting weary. It’s exhausting. And we conservatives have to be careful not to get caught up in every little cultural battle. Sometimes these skirmishes are just creations of outrage peddlers, detached from reality and not worth anybody’s time. They draw attention away from the far more important case we must make to the American people.”
Ryan has kept a low-profile since he retired from Congress in 2018. His muted criticism of Trump resonates with a Thursday report in Politico:
Some congressional Republicans fear a Trump comeback will freeze the GOP field and potentially deter other potential 2024 candidates from laying the proper groundwork to challenge President Joe Biden, if he fulfills his vow to run again. This means that most eager GOP hopefuls must wait to see what the former president decides, particularly those who have grown their national profiles in Trump’s political shadow.
