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A decade of dramatic GOP change since Paul Ryan became speaker
WaPo via MSN ^ | October 30, 2025 | Paul Kane

Posted on 11/01/2025 5:08:27 PM PDT by DoodleBob

Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wisconsin)…became House speaker at the age of 45 on Oct. 29, 2015, 10 years ago Wednesday.

The legislative turnover has been remarkable: Roughly 60 percent of the current House Republican Conference never served with Ryan, who retired in January 2019.

Those few House Republicans who served under Ryan and remain in Congress have mostly sworn off their allegiances to that previous era.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) was a freshman lawmaker in spring 2016 when she warmly introduced Ryan as a “happy warrior” …By 2020, Stefanik had reinvented herself as a Trump loyalist who would go on to serve in party leadership, then briefly be nominated to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during Trump’s second term.

Ryan never fully embraced Trump…, and wasn’t above criticizing him, like when the then-speaker decried Trump’s actions toward a judge of Mexican descent as a “textbook case of racism.”

Johnson, on the other hand, cheers on most of Trump’s actions. He recently applauded the president’s social media post of an AI-generated video showing him as “King Trump” flying a plane dropping feces over American cities.

But perhaps nothing demonstrates the Senate’s genuflecting before Trump than trade deals.

Ten years ago, 48 Republicans joined fewer than 15 Democrats in passing legislation meant to make it easy for President Barack Obama to negotiate free trade deals. That Senate is gone: Almost half of those GOP senators no longer serve in office. Now, Republicans in the Senate have largely abandoned free trade principles. On Wednesday, just four Republicans joined Democrats in voting to oppose a portion of Trump’s tariff agenda, something that Reagan — and Ryan — likely would have vigorously opposed.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: conservatism; paulryan
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Of these Republican tickets, which are the ones that were, in retrospect, the worst and best, and who was the worse VP candidate?

1976: Ford-Dole

1980+84: Reagan-Bush

1988+92: Bush-Quayle

1996: Dole-Kemp

2000+2004: Dubya-Cheney

2008: McCain-Palin

2012: Romney-Ryan

2016+2020: Trump-Pence

2024: Trump-Vance

1 posted on 11/01/2025 5:08:27 PM PDT by DoodleBob
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To: DoodleBob

Most of the presidents look awful compared to Trump.


2 posted on 11/01/2025 5:13:07 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: DoodleBob
Ryan never fully embraced Trump…, and wasn’t above criticizing him.

He was a member of the "uniparty".

3 posted on 11/01/2025 5:14:52 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: DoodleBob

Ryan is a dimorat.


4 posted on 11/01/2025 5:22:16 PM PDT by ChuckHam
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To: DoodleBob

Yeah, remember when Ryan was one of the “true conservative” “Young Guns” who were going to save us once they were in power?

We’re Charlie Brown with Lucy holding the football.


5 posted on 11/01/2025 5:26:45 PM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: DoodleBob

Paul Ryan and the Washington Post can do you know what to a bag of you know whats.


6 posted on 11/01/2025 5:34:45 PM PDT by bakeneko
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To: DoodleBob

He was worthless.


7 posted on 11/01/2025 5:37:13 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: DoodleBob

Ryan is an open-borders corporafascist.


8 posted on 11/01/2025 5:38:33 PM PDT by rottndog (There's Baseball and nothing else in October. )
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To: ChuckHam
Ryan is a dimorat.


9 posted on 11/01/2025 5:40:34 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: ChuckHam

Ryan is more like a traitor.
Pence runs a close second in being a scumbag Benedict Arnold too!
Which is worse. Flip a coin🤷‍♂️


10 posted on 11/01/2025 5:41:48 PM PDT by bantam
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To: bantam

Much of the GOP has been taken over by Marxists. Locally the base is waking up and rejecting leftist turds pretending to be conservatives. Once eye patch mccain and his ilk are purged along with ryan/turtle/cowski/cornholio and his buddies the GOP will be better off.


11 posted on 11/01/2025 5:46:11 PM PDT by ChuckHam
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To: bantam

Ryan was never really a Trumper. Pence, however, was Trump’s VP... so, in terms of betrayal, no doubt Pence should get Bennedict Arnold Award.


12 posted on 11/01/2025 6:16:49 PM PDT by paudio (Charlie Kirk is this era's MLK)
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To: 9YearLurker


"remember when Ryan was one of the “true conservative”"


Nope...
13 posted on 11/01/2025 6:17:34 PM PDT by Bikkuri
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To: MinorityRepublican

Wasn’t his wife a dem and her parents major dems?

I think that Eddie Munster lookin’ creep was a dem in sheep’s clothing.


14 posted on 11/01/2025 6:20:56 PM PDT by Cowgirl of Justice
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To: DoodleBob

Eddie Munster imagined himself as some sort of economics guru. The douchebag’s only job before congress was driving a weiner truck. He’s another commie parasite who has still never had a real job.


15 posted on 11/01/2025 6:29:37 PM PDT by HYPOCRACY (Wake up, smell the cat food in your bank account. )
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To: 9YearLurker

Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy and the Eric Cantor….Young Guns… in a blaze of glory (props to anti-Trumper Jon Bon Jovi)


16 posted on 11/01/2025 6:31:03 PM PDT by ripnbang ("An armed man is a citizen, an unarmed man, a subject.")
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To: MinorityRepublican

The only person to ever lose a debate to Biden. Retard.


17 posted on 11/01/2025 6:31:11 PM PDT by HYPOCRACY (Wake up, smell the cat food in your bank account. )
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To: MinorityRepublican

“Ryan never fully embraced Trump…, and wasn’t above criticizing him.”

Ryan teamed up with McConnell to obstruct much of Trump’s first term. Once the GOP House and Senate got their tax decrease for the donor class passed, they slow walked and killed most truly conservative legislation. No efforts to balance the budget, no efforts to stop the flow of money to leftist NGO’s. For the midterms (2018) Ryan announced he would not run for reelection and encouraged GOP members of the House to retire, removing the advantage of incumbency from swing seats. He did not campaign hard for the GOP and the GOP lost the majority in the House. He publicly in 2022 identified himself as a “never Trumper”.


18 posted on 11/01/2025 7:29:44 PM PDT by Soul of the South (The past is gone and cannot be changed. Tomorrow can be a better day if we work on it.)
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To: DoodleBob

Why are we talking about Paul Ryan right now, does he want back into the Game?
He’s only in mid 50s, a Spring Chicken, politically speaking. He would probably change to the Independent Party if he re entered politics.
Mitt is done playing.


19 posted on 11/01/2025 7:46:55 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: DoodleBob

An article marking the 10th anniversary of Paul Ryan becoming Speaker?

What is the point of this?

Was this author complimentary of Ryan and the GOP in general back then?


20 posted on 11/01/2025 8:02:55 PM PDT by Republican Wildcat
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