Paul Ryan’s Disavowal of Trump’s Racist Comment Rings Hollow

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has been  slow to coming around in support of Donald Trump’s candidacy, has clearly rounded the bend.

Image by Gage Skidmore, CC0 2.0, via Flikr

However, today Ryan disavowed Trump’s recent firestorm comments about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel. In those comments, Trump suggested the judge’s Mexican heritage makes him unfit to preside over the ongoing Trump University case.

The Ryan highlights:

“I disavow those comments … I regret those comments that he made.”

“Claiming that a person can’t do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment.”

“It’s absolutely unacceptable.”

But with Trump as the Republican nominee, Ryan must throw his support behind him, come hell or high water. Politics is so often about ideology, about tribal loyalty, and about power, after all. So,

“But do I believe Hilary Clinton is the answer? No, I do not.”

“I think they’re [Trump’s comments] wrong. I don’t think they’re right-headed.”

But at the end of the day, this is about ideas. This is about moving our agenda forward.”

I’m going to defend our ideas, …I’m going to defend our agenda. what matters to us most is our principles and the policies that come from our principles and our ability to give the people of this country a better way forward.

We believe we have a better likelihood of passing that [with Trump] than we would with a president Clinton.

It’s fascinating to observe Ryan struggling with the cognitive dissonance here. We all must do it, to some degree or other, in some way or other. But when it’s on the public stage like this, it’s quite something to behold.

But still, one must ask the question why an admittedly racist comment could be disavowed and yet at the same time, not considered to be pertinent to the “ideas’ and “agenda” and “principles” and “politics” that are to be defended? Shouldn’t anti-racism be part of agenda, core to hose principles that will “give the people of this country a better way forward”?

If so, why is Trump’s candidacy really the best answer to our problems, Mr. Ryan?

The disavowal rings hollow.