Granted, Ryan did not “lose” the Speaker position by election, but he lost it by selection: he CHOSE not to run again with trump as president pushing an agenda he (Ryan) did NOT want in any shape or means.
Ryan also CHOSE to encourage the “retirement” of nearly 40 senior RINO’s in 2018, giving them an excuse/reason to leave positions open rather than staying on a fighting for Trump’s positions, policies, budgets, and platforms.
An effective, dynamic leader would not have abandoned Trump to Pelosi and the NYTimes/WashPo’s publicity in 2018. He WANTED Trump to fail. That does, of course, leave the positionopen for him in 2020 (if Trump is impeached)/2024 (fighting Pence as nominal lead)/2028 (after Pence leaves in failure like Bush I/Dole/W).
Your thought of "an effective, dynamic leader would not have abandoned Trump to Pelos, etc." is spot on 100%. If those in the House really wanted to change things they would have stayed and fought, so in the short run, it is a disaster with the Dems going to hound Trump until the day he leaves office.
However, in trying to see both sides, Ryan never wanted to be Speaker and no conservative stepped forward, either. Jim Jordan finally stepped up after the election and lost the Minority Leader position to McCarthy, who is fairly moderate but pretends to be conservative when everyone is watching. The members vote on these folks, so who is really to blame?
That’s a quite a fair argument...but the Dems taking control or not taking control had nothing to do with Ryan continuing as Speaker...that’s all I was pointing out.
The Dems did not win in a massive landslide and it is pretty clear that without all of those retirements we would have had a much clearer shot at holding the House...that many open seats stretches resources very thin.