Today's Best-Case Summit Scenario: Trump Calls the Speaker 'Tryin' Ryan'
Man, the Donald Trump–Paul Ryan conference today is the most wildly hyped meeting of leaders since the Yalta Summit. The cable networks are running countdown clocks until the start of the meeting. Daniel Henninger points out that, despite the yuge differences between the two men, there is room for common ground there: The current narrative holds that the Ryan agenda and the Trump candidacy are irreconcilable, especially on immigration and trade. At bottom, though, I think both men want the same thing. Donald Trump has the better way of putting it: Make America Great Again. Paul Ryan's version, the one that runs back to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, is: Restore economic growth. Donald Trump and Paul Ryan should use Thursday's meeting as the start of a conversation on restoring economic growth. Both men understand that Barack Obama's seven years of zero to 2% growth is killing the American public. Reversing that Obama economic legacy is essentially the only thing Paul Ryan thinks about. It is the reality that has made Donald Trump the party's presumptive nominee. The differences on trade and immigration matter. But even here both men recognize that horrible growth has made productive thought on either subject virtually impossible. And both know that if growth doesn't get better, whoever wins in November will be a one-term president. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party's two leading figures, have given up on growth and now propose to anesthetize the American people to the Obama reality with the narcotic of "free" handouts. Yup, the Trump and Ryan assessments of the state of the country overlap quite a bit. Think back to how Ryan greeted Obama's most recent State of the Union address: "I thought it was a fairly typical speech for the president," Ryan said. "Apparently ISIS is a bunch of guys riding around in trucks and a picture of a good foreign policy is Syria. I think he glossed over the economy. I think he glossed over our foreign-policy failures." Later he said, "That's the kind of speech he gives these days, and I think it really is divorced from reality." He said Obama's arguments defending his record -- and dismissing as "political hot air" accusations that the nation is in economic and military decline -- didn't square with the realities many Americans see in their own lives. "What I don't think you got out of that speech is, people are really hurting," he said. Ryan seems to grasp the danger of remaining in quasi-open rhetorical warfare with his party's nominee all the way through to November. It's not the primary challenge -- Ryan is barely holding on to his 64-point lead -- or the criticism from Sarah Palin; it's that continual refusal to endorse Trump means that every conversation with the media for the rest of the year will include some variation of "here's what's wrong with Trump, and here's why I can't support him." We all know how warmly Trump welcomes criticism; every time the Speaker reaffirms his decision to not support the likely nominee, Trump will lash out at Ryan. And the more the two men are in a war of words with each other, the less they're focusing the public's attention on what they actually want to do to help the country. That's only good for Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats. Trump probably grasps this, too, but let's face it; lashing out at perceived slights is deep within his DNA. It would do Trump some good to offer a non-generic bit of praise for Ryan -- citing Ryan's staunch opposition to the Iran Deal, his fight against the administration's visa-waiver program, or the House's efforts to block President Obama's executive-order amnesty. But that would contradict Trump's "everybody in Washington is selling you out, I'm the only one looking out for you" tone and argument. In turn, Ryan could say some nice words about Trump's bringing new people into the Republican party and how Trump has shone a spotlight on Americans who feel left behind by a rapidly changing economy and a culture that simply isn't interested in working-class Americans anymore. But 2016 has taught us not to bet on the best-case scenario. Look Who Wants Another 15 Minutes of Fame, and/or Money I guess we know what everyone will be yelling about for the next few days: A gun used to shoot dead unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin is to be auctioned by the man who shot him, George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, was cleared over the death of the 17-year-old in February 2012 after saying he acted in self-defense. He said he was selling the gun partly to raise funds to fight "Hillary Clinton's anti-firearm rhetoric". The Martin family would not "comment on the actions of that person", they said. George Zimmerman insists the world see him as a hero, a near-martyr, a cultural touchstone. He's none of these things, nor do we have evidence that he's the trigger-happy, youth-targeting racist that Al Sharpton and his comrades insist. He's a guy who shot a young man, claimed self-defense, and no one could prove otherwise . . . and who simply won't go away back into private life. As our David French put it: I think Zimmerman behaved foolishly. Looking at the situation from Trayvon Martin's perspective, he was being followed first by vehicle then by foot -- after dark -- by a strange man who is neither law enforcement nor obviously a member of a uniformed security force. That's unsettling at best, terrifying at worst -- and leaves Martin with few good options. Should he presume Zimmerman's good will and approach him for conversation? Should he keep his head down and walk as quickly as possible home? Should he try to hide? Should he run? Or should he take the worst of the series of bad options and turn and fight -- even before Zimmerman makes an overtly threatening move? Some courses of action were safer than others, but all carried a degree of risk. Zimmerman put Trayvon Martin in a difficult situation, and the fact there was strong evidence that Martin took the worst possible course of action -- attacking Zimmerman -- doesn't vindicate Zimmerman's foolishness. There is not one single concealed carry permit holder in the United States who should look to George Zimmerman as a model of proper conduct . . . I have long been just as suspicious of the rush to exonerate George Zimmerman as I have been of the rush to convict. Up until the trial itself I thought the prosecution might come forward with compelling evidence that George Zimmerman initiated the violence. It did not. Not even close. But regardless of the outcome of the Zimmerman trial, we should not waiver in the conviction that our laws do not protect aggressors and that our private and public spaces belong to the law-abiding. In other words, the message is simple: If you attack another person, the victim is under no obligation to run away. But now, because Zimmerman wants to make money off selling his gun, we're going to have this debate, one more time. Is Acknowledging an Upside to Trump an Endorsement? It's odd. Tuesday's piece is being interpreted as an endorsement of Trump. Somehow lots of people believe that it's impossible to believe that a Trump victory in November would be bad for Hillary Clinton, Obama's legacy, and the Democrats and simultaneously be bad for the cause of conservatism and country as a whole. To the reader telling me to get onboard with Trump . . . What am I supposed to do, outsource my sense of right and wrong to the crowd? Because Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal jump on the bandwagon, I've got to follow? I'm not wrong. Trump is untrustworthy, flip-flopping slime of awful character, obnoxious, crass, authoritarian in instinct; a bully, ignorant of policy and unwilling to learn, stirring up people's worst impulses, disrespectful to anyone who doesn't kiss his ass, likely to enact a plethora of policies I oppose, and likely to affirm Obama's imperial approach to the presidency. And you want me - as you're apparently willing to do -- to shrug and hand-wave all of that, just because he's not Hillary Clinton? Could we set the bar any lower? Hasn't history taught us that a Democratic loss isn't automatically a victory for the conservative cause? ADDENDA: I'm scheduled to appear on CNN today after 11 a.m., talking about the Ryan–Trump summit. My podcast co-host Mickey writes over at Ricochet about the extraordinarily complicated and arduous process of adopting a rescue dog: Just this week I had considered going through the excruciating process of "adopting" a dog from one group. It was nearly $400 for this particular mixed-breed rescue, then deposits, paperwork, background checks, and even a home visit before they would even tell us if we're "good enough" for these dogs -- the ones who desperately need homes. Not all rescue operations are scams, but unfortunately many are. They take advantage of our love of animals and desire to help.  | 
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