The self-delusion of Paul Ryan

In so many ways, Paul Ryan and Donald Trump have little in common. Ryan is affable, and well-mannered; Trump, not so much. Ryan holds strong, consistent ideological beliefs; Trump, not so much. Paul Ryan is in splendid physical shape
But there is one thing they do share: A sense of personal achievement strangely disconnected from their real-world records.

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Over the past 24 hours, the @SpeakerRyan Twitter account has blasted to 3.6 million followers a startlingly self-congratulatory sequence of images and videos, detailing his career over the past 20 years. Their theme: Ryan is a man of destiny, committed to reform, steeled in his “wilderness years” (yes, the sequence actually applies that Churchillian label), to deliver a triumphant victory for the American people over grubby-minded special interests.