Aside from the rich, the electorate is hurting — a pulsing mass of tender nerves, hypersensitive to things that portend pain, reflexively reacting to the thump of even the softest mallet. Needless to say, this is not the time for sledgehammer solutions.

Yet that’s exactly what Paul Ryan offered.

Scared of being labeled R.I.N.O.’s (Republicans in name only), Republicans became Ryan-os, blind devotees to their young Achilles in electoral flip-flops. Former Vice President Dick Cheney went so far as to say, “I worship the ground that Paul Ryan walks on.” When the Sultan of Sadism gushes over someone, you know there’s a problem.