11/19/2016

What a peach that Paul Ryan is. Never underestimate his aggressive modesty. Right now, he’s even letting Donald Trump think that he runs the country.

Every member of the House Republican conference found a traditional red “Make America Great Again” hat waiting on their seats Tuesday morning before a Capitol Hill meeting. “Welcome to the dawn of a new unified Republican government,” Ryan announced at a news conference. “This will be a government focused on turning President-elect Trump’s victory into real progress for the American people.”

I like both of those sentences. The first, because he sounds like he’s moments from giving the order to destroy a planet with the Death Star. And the second is a nifty parse. He pays proper deference to “President-elect Trump’s victory,” but not to Trump’s vision. He situates Trump’s victory as the last puzzle piece Republicans needed to achieve what Ryan would categorize as “real progress for the American people.” He speaks of what the new “government” will do as though we’re in a parliamentary system. That would make Donald Trump the figurehead monarch, and Paul Ryan the prime minister. Let Trump be head of state, if that flatters him. Ryan will gladly assume head of government.

The head of government has done his homework and knows what he wants to achieve, while the head of state is still in the period of processing that he’s the head of state.
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