The day after Donald Trump swept five primaries this week and tightened his grip on the Republican nomination for president, both he and the other most prominent Republican politician in the country were speaking the language of populism.
“We’re
going to get rid of these politicians,” Trump said in his opening remarks
during an hourlong appearance on Fox News on Wednesday in which Greta Van
Susteren and a studio audience in Indianapolis lavished him with praise,
sometimes in the form of questions.
House
Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wisc.) sounded a similar note. Ryan said at Georgetown
University: “We do not believe we should be governed by our betters, that
elites in Washington should make all those big decisions.”
The
similarities between Trump and Ryan, however, end with their recognition of anti-establishment
sentiment. In fact, these two men have come to represent powerful and opposing
wings of the Republican party — perspectives that are on a collision course.
The tension between the two men will become all the more evident if and when
Trump clinches the nomination, and a clash would be all but unavoidable should
Trump defy what appear to be high odds and defeat likely Democratic nominee
Hillary Clinton for the presidency.
And
regardless of whether Trump wins or loses, the fight between his faction and
Ryan’s will continue beyond this election.
Trump
has come to represent not just a pugnacious, take-no-prisoners style but a
group of voters whose animating principle is that they want to blow up the
existing order in Washington, D.C., and don’t care who they alienate along the
way. Ryan, meanwhile, has emerged as the most formidable Republican leader
arguing for rebuilding the party by rejecting the path of damn-the-consequences
Trumpism.
The
contrasts between the two couldn’t be more stark. Trump lacks a coherent
political ideology. Ryan has spent most of his adult life honing conservative
philosophy and ideas. Trump rose to power through celebrity (and money). Ryan
did it with ideas (and the power of an important House chairmanship). Trump’s
candidacy is fueled by anger and disillusionment with government. Ryan is trying
to repair public trust in Congress. Its approval rating has risen six points in
Gallup’s regular tracking poll since Ryan became speaker at the end of October,
but it is still a dismal 17 percent.
Many
Trump supporters see in his business success and outsized personality the
answer to a government they view as sprawling, stumbling and corrupt. To them,
he is a strongman who can knock heads, hire “the best people” and make things
work again by dislodging entrenched special interests and reducing the size of
government. To that end, Trump has promised to take on lobbyists and political
insiders, and often boasts that he is not taking money from wealthy donors. But
close scrutiny of his proposals show they would vastly increase the size of
government and do almost nothing to
reduce the national debt.
Ryan
also wants to restore confidence in government — but by reforming it and
reducing its size and scope. In that effort, he has spent the last decade
working inside the system and with Democrats. He
spent the first half of the Obama administration pushing a plan to reform
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, with an eye to reducing long-term
government debt. Since the 2012 election, when Ryan was the GOP vice
presidential nominee, he has increasingly spoken up about the needs of
Americans stuck in cycles of poverty and crime.
Trump,
meanwhile, has promised not to change the entitlement programs that, along with
demographic trends, are a driver of long-term debt. He even blamed Romney’s 2012
loss on his selection of Ryan as his running mate.
The
coming confrontation between Ryan and Trump — and the poles of the party they
represent — has been building all year, with Ryan speaking out against Trump
more often as the year has gone on. This month, he said Trump had “disfigured” American values with
his call to ban all Muslims from the U.S., and that foreign heads of state in
the Middle East had thanked him for repudiating Trump when the businessman
announced his proposal in December.
When
a young Republican student at Georgetown University told Ryan Wednesday that he
was “dismayed” by the presidential election, Ryan smiled wryly and joked, “Why
is that?” The audience laughed. And when the student asked Ryan reasons he
could give to be optimistic, Ryan responded by talking about the policy agenda
he is promoting in the House for Congress, and said: “Look at the policies, not
the person necessarily.”
Ryan
spoke at Georgetown and answered questions from students as part of an ongoing
effort on his part to broaden the appeal of the party. He opened his remarks by
joking about the Republican Party’s lack of appeal to young people. “Why
support Republicans?” he asked, and paused as the audience laughed in response,
and applauded. “I’m going to go out on a limb and I’m going to assume that the
thought has not been occurring to most of you recently.”
Ryan’s
remark was an offhand way of acknowledging that Trump’s candidacy has not been
winning over very many converts among young voters. But he sought to persuade
the students that the GOP actually stands for a vision of the future that is
radically at odds with the message that has come from Trump. “The America that
you want is the America that we want: open, diverse, dynamic,” Ryan said.
But
Ryan has also resisted calls for him to openly disavow Trump, and has
maintained he will support whoever emerges as the Republican nominee. Ryan has
been mocked for doing so, but if Trump were to win the presidency, Ryan would
loom as the largest counterbalance to Trump’s nativist and authoritarian
approach. Most recently, Trump has said he would change the rules of the
Republican primary nominating system. It’s something far easier said than done,
but indicates the degree to which Trump has no use for the checks and balances
inherent in American democracy since the nation’s founding.
Ryan
has made clear that one of his top five priorities in Congress next year is to
dramatically reduce the power of the president. He reiterated this at
Georgetown Wednesday.
“We
need to restore the Constitution and Article 1 in the Constitution. What that
means is the laws we live under should be written by we, through our elected
representatives. Right now we don’t really have that,” Ryan said. “We’ve got
this fourth branch of government — unelected bureaucrats — writing our rules, writing
our regulations that govern our society, that determine how our businesses run,
how our schools work. It determines almost everything we do.”
Ryan
blamed both President Obama and previous Republican presidents for expanding
executive power. And he added: “We believe in self-determination. We believe in
government by consent of the governed. We are losing that. So we have a lot of
ideas for restoring that.”
Earlier
in the day, Ryan said he’d spoken with Trump about his agenda for next year,
and said all had been supportive.
“I
said here is what we’re doing, here’s where we’re going. Here’s why we’re doing
it. We decided this last year before the presidential election got even
started. And yes, we had a very pleasant conversation,” Ryan said on CNN.
Of
course, around the same time that Ryan and Trump had that conversation, Trump
also publicly threatened Ryan during a press conference. “Paul Ryan, I don’t
know him well, but I’m sure I’m going to get along great with him, and if I
don’t? He’s gonna have to pay a big price, OK?” Trump said.
Ryan
this week indicated there is a high degree of uncertainty about how Trump would
conduct himself as president. Asked by CBS’ Charlie Rose how Trump’s brand of
Republicanism would differ from his own, Ryan responded: “We’ll find out.”
Ryan’s
aggressive and omnipresent media efforts — TV and print interviews, a social
media presence and constant video content out of his office — are seen by the
press as signs of pure political ambition. But it’s more than that. Ryan is
also an institutionalist, who believes Congress has to be trusted to work.
Ryan’s
media operation is part of an attempt to restore faith in government. By
communicating clearly and often Congress’ goals and how they will be
accomplished, Ryan is seeking to reverse a growing pattern in which lawmakers
have overpromised to get elected and then underdelivered on their pledges, from
ending the war in Iraq to repealing Obamacare.
Ryan’s
most immediate political concern is to maintain a Republican majority in the
House. It’s a growing concern that
with Trump at the top of the ticket, the GOP could lose its 30-seat advantage,
which had been thought impregnable. The GOP four-seat edge in the Senate is
slim in comparison.
Ryan
wants to give Republican candidates in competitive states or congressional
districts a positive, forward-looking message to run on, rather than the
grievance-based politics of Trump.
“Instead
of playing the identity politics of ‘our base’ and ‘their base,’” Ryan said
recently, he thinks the GOP should seek to “unite people around ideas and
principles.”
Republicans,
Ryan said, should not “just oppose someone or something” but should instead
“propose a clear and compelling alternative.”
“And
when we do that, we don’t just win the argument. We don’t just win your
support. We win your enthusiasm,” he said.
If
Ryan’s vision of what the GOP should be is to win out over Trump’s, it will
have to do just that.
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