Is Paul "Ayn Rand" Ryan crazier, more demented and crueler than the Orange Anus? Just asking.

[Augiedog]

[PsychoBabble]

1. I watched an interview ...

... with a Hillary turned Trump voter who said about Ryan, something like, "He looks reasonable."

There is plenty of soc/psych research that talks to the influence of attractiveness on decision-making. He looks good. He smiles. He uses nice phrases, and a tone that doesn't SOUND like he is stabbing you in the gut while he looks you in the eye.

So yes, maybe Ryan IS more cruel than Trump, who barely seems to know better. Ryan DOES .... and soes it, anyway.

[dalton99a]

2. He's the kind of nice guy who puts poison in your IV line to make you feel better

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. He's not crazy. He could be a sociopath, like Ayn Rand's hero William Hickman,

a serial killer during the 20s, about whom she wrote: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should." Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"

Most of us would not consider those to be positive traits, but Rand thought they were awesome. I think Ryan, for reasons that are not at all clear, is a free-market cultist for whom the people who would be harmed by the repeal of the ACA are merely collateral damage. He and the other GOPers who are pushing this thing are so fanatical about the supposed truth of the "free market" that they simply will not consider any policy that does not promote free-market solutions, no matter what the cost to actual people. They are like religious fanatics who consider doctrine more important than outcomes, or the Communists of the old Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, who rigidly enforced the structures of and obedience to the Communist Party in complete disregard of the terrible damage being inflicted on the society and the people.

I don't think Ryan et al. actively hate the poor or intentionally wish to cause them harm. They just don't care what happens to them as a result of their policies because the free market is supposed to fix everything, maybe, someday, and then everything will be wonderful.

[crazycatlady]

4. He's Prince Charming turned evil

You see this character a lot on those CSI type TV shows.

[brush]

5. I don't think he's as smart as people give him credit for

Look at how he was smiling and holding up a copy of the plan and gushing "this is our chance to finally repeal and replace Obamacare", as if that piece of shit plan that they threw together in a couple of weeks is something to be proud of.

I still remember how Joe Biden destroyed him in the VP debate in '12 — took that smirk right off his face.

IMO opinion he's just another white male, in his case one who has never had a job off the public dole, who keeps getting kicked upstairs because of it.

[KT2000]

6. Ayn Rand's trick is similar

to repubs as a whole.
She separates the society into the intellectuals and the losers. When people read her books they assume that because they are reading the book, they must be the ruling elite and smarter than everyone else. It does not matter how much a person knows or what their education, she latched on to that driving need in people, mostly men, who must be king of the mountain before their lives are over.
Ryan is not an intellectual nor is he well educated - he denies consequences which is a sure sign of lack of intelligence.

tRump and Ryan are of the same ilk. tRump claims superiority because he has convinced people he is wealthy - a sign of a winner and Ryan has convinced the RW that he is an intellectual when he is not. Neither thinks through to the consequences and can rationalize them when they appear - blame others.

[BainsBane]

7. No, but he's an ideologue

[Xolodno]

8. Hard to say.

Ryan takes Rand's fiction as gospel. He probably believes that over Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations".

The concept that Ayn Rand's fiction is not good policy is beyond his comprehension. Him and his ilk think the "free market" can solve every problem, without realizing what they are dangerously close to is, anarchy.

[NastyRiffraff]

9. He's ultimately more dangerous

Simply because he SEEMS reasonable and sane compared to the Orangatan in the White House. And the Deplorables are obviously easily fooled. Plus some people think he's good looking (can't see it myself, but it's part of his appeal). As Hamlet said:

"One may smile and smile and be a villain"

[Johonny]

10. No, he is speaker of the house where his caucus is filled with junior Trumps

The last guy couldn't do much with his majority and Ryan, given his age, wants to be remembered as a transformational speaker thus his stern determination to do something with this house. His problem is...once again the last speaker with these same nuts couldn't do anything. Hence your seeing bills that pander to lobbyists and the various factions of his house in hopes of building some majority by piecemeal garbage so he can avoid the pratfall of using the minority to pass functioning bills. The problem is those functioning bills, well, functioned and his current legislative slate looks like a nightmare waiting to happen. Worse he doesn't have the luxury of passing garbage and knowing the president or senate will bail him out. He got what he wanted power, and now that power is mostly to do either nothing or stupid things. That's just the state of the modern GOP. Their good ideas died long ago.