It's Extremely Unlikely Paul Ryan Will Be Able To Hold Onto His Seat In The 2018 Midterms

The new PPP survey has Congress' approval down at 9%. By a 49-35% margin, voters want to see Democrats win control of the House in 2018. On top of that, the Republican Speaker, Paul Ryan, has a job approval rating of just 16%-- with 62% of Americans disapproving of the way he's handling his job. (52% of Trump voters and 77% of Clinton voters disapprove of Ryan's job performance.) But there's much worse news for Ryan than that. The DCCC commissioned a poll of Ryan's congressional district last week. His job approval among WI-01 Republicans was just 29% and a good sample of Democratic, Republican and independent voters in WI-01 show Ryan with a dismal 14% job approval rating. That isn't something incumbents recover from, not even in 15 months.

And Ryan's hometown newspaper, Janesville's GazetteXtra explained why people in his district have finally turned on him. His slick, deceitful, focus group-tested bullshit has worn thin in the last couple of years and the voters in southeast Wisconsin are excited that the perfect alternative to Ryan's inauthenticity has presented himself in the form of shape, plain-spoken iron worker and union activist Randy Bryce. The GazetteXtra reported that at Monday's phony-baloney CNN fake town hall (in reality a Ryan infomercial) "Ryan left the impression that the problems plaguing Obamacare could be fixed if only the Senate did its part and voted to repeal and replace it." The disgraceful Jake Tapper sat mum while Ryan tried to spin his lies, but the GazetteXtra called him out on them.

Ryan stuck to his talking points while sidestepping criticism of the bill he shepherded through the House in May-- a bill that received virtually no support from health care professionals or advocacy groups, such as AARP. Whether by accident or design, questioners at the town hall never pressed Ryan on the shortcomings of the GOP health care bills.

The GOP created high expectations by spending the past seven years criticizing Obamacare. So nobody can be blamed for feeling let down when the House settled on a bill that the Congressional Budget Office estimated would leave 23 million more Americans uninsured in a decade, including 14 million from reduced Medicaid enrollment.

The GOP promise of lower premiums would ring true only for the healthiest and youngest people buying insurance from individual markets. But premiums for older Americans would skyrocket under the House bill, the CBO found.

At the town hall, Ryan touted high-risk insurance pools operated by states as key to solving Obamacare's problems. But it's not clear whether states or the federal government would adequately fund these pools, potentially leaving people with pre-existing conditions priced out of insurance markets.

Ryan conveyed Monday night, as he often does, his beliefs in broad, philosophical terms. In particular, he responded to a Dominican nun's question with a declaration that he wants to help the poor through “upward mobility, that means economic growth, that means equality of opportunity.”

But what Ryan learned (or should have learned) from the debate surrounding the House health care bill is that people don't view this bill as advancing the principles he claims to espouse. It's perplexing to think how dramatically slashing the number of insured Americans would lead to more “upward mobility” or “equality of opportunity.”

Indeed, the bill has proven so unpopular because many people view it as completely contrary to their own self-interests. They see a dissonance between Ryan's words and the bill adopted by the House.

The far-right elements within the Republican Party are blind to the dissonance, and they seem to have too strong a grip on Ryan. During the town hall, Ryan made no overtures, gave no indication that he's ready to work with Democrats to fix Obamacare. He appears to be following President Trump's lead in pushing the health care system to the brink, though Ryan's constituents have nothing to gain from Obamacare's collapse.

What this nation needs is a bipartisan commitment to figure out how to improve the health care system. But bipartisanship requires compromise--an acknowledgment that neither party will get everything it wants.

Unfortunately, both parties' leaders remain locked in a staring contest, waiting for the other to blink first. Each side seems to treat Beltway politics as a battle to be won, rather than a process to be driven through negotiation with the other party.

It's telling that Ryan never uttered the word “compromise” Monday night, according to our review of the evening's transcript, and that's perhaps the real shame in all of this. He seems content to advance the GOP agenda through the blunt force of partisanship, while his constituents would benefit from a new approach. They want peace of mind. They want a health care system that works for them.

Randy Bryce filled us in on how he saw what I called Ryan's CNN informercial Monday:

Paul Ryan had an event this past Monday in Wisconsin. It was in WI-01 but it was far from an actual town hall. Jake Tapper brought a high tech CNN set into town. One had to apply to gain admission via CNN. Part of the questionnaire included political affiliation. Not only were all of the people specially chosen but the questions were also sent in with the screening process. I applied, but, was not invited. Outside of the event about 300 people who also were not accepted met in the “Free Speech Zone”-- an area where we were allowed to gather. A local businessman approached me and let me know that he never applied, but was sent an invite that included a parking pass through the US Postal Service. (snail mail) Many Wisconsin GOP electeds were in attendance. It was a dog and pony media circus put on for Paul Ryan’s benefit thanks to Mr. Tapper. Also, different sources informed me that even though hundreds were not admitted and waited outside, there were a lot of empty chairs. Hired security and staff were directed to fill the seats so as to not make it appear to be empty.

During the show Paul Ryan was booed by the crowd for mansplaining poverty to a nun. He referred to her as a Dominican nun even though she told him that she did not belong to the Dominicans. He also took the side of guns while talking to a Sikh leader who’s father was murdered by a white supremacist just a few years earlier. On the comical end, he bragged about Cristo Rey-- a Latino Catholic parish that had ceased to exist in 2014.

Even though I wasn’t deemed worthy to ask Ryan any questions our campaign bought tv ads that ran in the district asking him if he accepts 23 million people losing access to health care, when he plans on passing ‘equal pay for equal work’ and asking when he’s going to call Donald Trump out for what he is-- being a racist.

As can be seen, it’s no wonder why Speaker Ryan is afraid to have an actual town hall. He has no idea what’s going on in the community.

He’s going to get a better idea after I repeal and replace him in November of 2018.

In all fairness, I was invited after the event to talk about it with Don Lemon on CNN.