When America needed a conservative leader to stand up to Donald Trump, Paul Ryan failed For the House speaker and Republican star, the sky was supposed to be the limit. But the sky has fallen: Our view

The Editorial Board | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Paul Ryan won't seek re-election, here's who could replace him House Speaker Paul Ryan has announced he will not run for re-election, which means Republicans will have to fill that void in order to keep their majority.

Paul Ryan was always the thoughtful, likable conservative, and it didn’t hurt that he was young and ripped. Now he’s just another Republican House speaker who couldn’t figure out how to do his job — or decided it was too hard.

“I have given this job everything I have,” Ryan said in announcing Wednesday that he would not run for re-election this fall. It wasn’t enough.

There’s no denying Ryan faced tough circumstances. His predecessor, John Boehner, walked away in the middle of his term after failing to corral a party deeply divided between its suburban moderates and increasingly forceful conservatives.

PAUL RYAN: Congress is important, but so is being a father and husband

Neither Boehner nor Ryan was ever able to get those conservatives to accept that compromise, whether with their own party's moderates or Democrats, is essential both to governing and to advancing their own cause.

While Boehner faced a president of the opposing party, Ryan had the complication of President Trump, a man who reshaped the Republican Party in ways that contradict the speaker's long-held principles on trade and other issues. Trump is now synonymous with the GOP, in part because if Ryan resisted the transformation, it was hard to tell.

It didn't have to be that way. There was a time when Ryan himself, now 48, was considered to be next-generation presidential timber. “Paul Ryan is a leader. His leadership begins with character and values,” 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said when he picked Ryan as his running mate. “With energy and vision, Paul Ryan has become an intellectual leader of the Republican Party.”

The sky was the limit. But the sky has fallen, at least for now, on Ryan’s political prospects even as Romney appears headed for the Senate from Utah and a similar reckoning on whether to go along with Trump or take him on.

Ryan abandons his party at an inopportune time. Respect for the character, values and intellectual leadership that Romney heralded as Ryan's selling points are at an all-time low among many Republicans. That's much to the detriment of both the Wisconsin congressman and his party's future viability.

He is now a lame duck not only as speaker but also as a fundraiser for a GOP on the ropes. He knows as well as anyone that Republicans desperately need cash to offset Democrats’ ferocious desire to vote them out in November.

Maybe it wasn’t fair to expect a self-styled budget wonk to stand up to the reality TV-honed charisma of America's first social media president. Nevertheless, America needed Ryan to rise to the moment, to lead his party and above all his country in defense of principles challenged by a plutocratic populist devoid of respect for the rule of law, basic facts and competent government.

America needed a leader who championed special counsel Robert Mueller, not just with words but also with legislation to protect his search for the truth on Trump and Russia. A leader who went against some in his party to allow votes on bipartisan health care and immigration deals. Above all, a leader who used his position to be the constructive and upstanding conservative counterweight to Trump.

Now Ryan is going home so he can be more than a weekend dad. He says he has accomplished much of what he had hoped to do in Washington. If that includes a legacy of massive deficits, a looming trade war, a paralyzed Congress and a party now fully identified with an erratic, ill-informed, ethically challenged president, he’s right.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

To read more editorials, go to the Opinion front page or sign up for the daily Opinion email newsletter. To respond to this editorial, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

If you can't see this reader poll, please refresh your page.