The irrelevancy of Paul Ryan

Under Speaker Ryan, Republicans were unable to agree on a plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare, unable to cut entitlements (Ryan’s personal dream since he was in college), unable to make the budget process functional, unable even to address the administration’s own priorities of curbing immigration. The only important legislation Congress passed during Ryan’s tenure was the tax cut, which was cobbled together frantically with essentially no time for regular members to read it, much less have material input on it. From that perspective, Ryan’s tenure looks like a record of failure.

And yet, Ryan does leave the speakership with his party far more unified than it had been. There is little concern that his likely successor, Kevin McCarthy, will face the kind of routine rebellions that made John Boehner’s tenure such a misery. If his legislative accomplishments are thin, can Ryan at least take credit for bringing his party back together?

Not at all. Congressional Republicans are far more unified today than they were three years ago not because of anything Ryan did, but because of Donald Trump. Once he descended the golden escalator, the Tea Party was no longer the voice of Republican outrage at the purportedly pusillanimous establishment — Trump was.