Ryan is point man for the GOP. If you accept the argument made by Hamilton Jay in post 72 (I do), somebody has to be the face of the GOP.
I'm not buying the claim that the party is unifying. It isn't clear just yet that the GOP accepts Trump as the nominee, and in fact, what is clear is the opposite. The party does not accept Trump as the presumptive nominee. My takeaway is that the party is no closer to be unified today than it was yesterday. All we have is a bunch of meaningless claims from the politicians.
My point is that while Ryan's actions may be unbecoming in a general sense, or in a usual election contest, this is far from usual. This really is Trump and his voters siding with a minority of GOP who have been opposed to the party's direction for years. You bet that Ryan and his ilk are going to fight like hell.
I think most of the GOP is uniting fine enough.
But there also seems to be a toxically vocal, albeit small contingent of dissenters who are stirring up a lot of trouble at the moment.
Some of it’s the #NeverTrump people, and we know who many of them are. Along with other unknowns who we don’t know are involved. As well as circumstantial opportunists simply gaming the dissent for their own gain.
Cruz’s actions certainly haven’t done anything to soothe this over either. I’m sure there’s enough diehards who avidly believe they can still steal the nomination from Trump @ Convention.