Donald Trump is making a last ditch effort to take Paul Ryan down with him
Over the past month, as Donald Trump has run out of scapegoats for his failed presidency, and as the Republicans in Congress have increasingly distanced themselves from his toxic radiation, he’s begun targeting them in return. He’s threatened everything from taking away their health insurance to cutting off their states’ funds. But now Trump – with a little help from Russia – is making a last ditch effort at taking down Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.
From a political standpoint, it’s not clear why the Trump regime is now targeting Paul Ryan. He wasn’t responsible for the failure of TrumpCare in Congress, and in fact lately he’s been laying as low as possible. But from an evidentiary standpoint, it’s become abundantly clear that Ryan is being targeted. As noted by Newsweek (link), Russian bots have now begun solidly targeting Paul Ryan for his demise. And the Russian government hackers controlling these bots wouldn’t be taking this kind of targeted action if they didn’t have at least tacit approval from the Trump regime.
The question becomes just who is signing off on this and why. Last week the Russian bots were targeting National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster in his feud with Steve Bannon. That led to the presumption that Bannon himself, or Bannon loyalists within the White House, were colluding with the Russians to launch a foreign attack against a U.S. official. Although Trump has publicly defended McMaster, it’s nearly impossible to imagine Bannon colluding with the Russians without Trump’s approval.
And so the best guess here is that Bannon and his loyalists, with the approval of Trump himself, are now directing Russia to direct its bots at Paul Ryan. It’s far past the point where ousting Ryan in favor of a Trump loyalist as Speaker could turn anything around. This looks like Trump and Bannon, who have always hated Ryan, are simply trying to take him down with them as their regime circles the drain.
