Paul Ryan Destroys his Primary Challenger, Who Was Endorsed by Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter

By Leon H. Wolf | 9:46 PM on August 09, 2016

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Well, this one was pretty much a formality, but it’s still amusing that early Trump adopters like Ann Coulter, Mickey Kaus, and Sarah Palin tried to suggest that Paul Ryan was somehow in trouble because of the challenge presented by borderline insane Trump-humper extraordinaire Paul Nehlen. Right now, the only interesting question is whether Nehlen will crack 20%; it seems inevitable that he will lose by more than 50% when this thing is all over. I am not even sure who to credit with “calling” this race, because it isn’t even competitive enough for the media to cover.

All of Trump’s biggest supporters wanted Ryan to lose in the worst way possible. Earlier today, Ryan got what I considered to be the most ringing endorsement possible by way of being hated by this tremendous group of terrible people:

NumbersUSA President: “Nobody in the Republican Party could be worse [on the issue of immigration] than Paul Ryan.” https://t.co/ck4xdqIaDd

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) August 8, 2016

Now, I’m not a huge, unqualified fan of Paul Ryan. I think he’s an improvement over Boehner as Speaker, but that’s as far as it goes. I think he should have done much more to help Tim Huelskamp win his primary in KS-01, given that he would have done so for a moderate candidate against a conservative challenger.

That said, anyone who is this much of a hero to the early Trump adopters deserves to lose and lose big. In big, humiliating fashion. And lose Paul Nehlen did. Which means that hopefully, the whole country has not gone completely insane.

UPDATE: I feel like I need to say one other thing about this race. In spite of the fact that polls have for months shown that Ryan was leading in this race by 50 or more points, some conservative outlets and pundits have told you with a straight face that Ryan was “in trouble” and that there was a real groundswell in WI-1 to unseat Paul Ryan, and he was headed for a loss. If you find yourself surprised at all that Ryan instead won by a humongous margin, you ought to really consider your life choices in terms of your news sources.