While I was in the chambers of the Supreme Court, listening to lawyers try to explain to Justice Samuel Alito how health insurance actually works while other lawyers came right up to the edge of asking the Court to judge the nature of sin, it seems that we were treated to a lecture on the state of our politics from Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin and philosopher king of Janesville and all of Rock County. He seems to be a bit distressed about the way things have turned out since he finished as first runner-up in our last Vice President of the United States Pageant.

(And if you are now wondering, "Who asked you, pal?" Rest assured you're not alone.)

He began by showing he was down wit da yout'.

This is my answer to that. Here is what I know now that I want you to know—that you cannot see yourself today. And that is not just a lesson for young minds, but a message for all Americans. Our political discourse—both the kind we see on TV and the kind we experience among each other—did not use to be this bad and it does not have to be this way. Now, a little skepticism is healthy. But when people distrust politics, they come to distrust institutions. They lose faith in their government, and the future too. We can acknowledge this. But we don't have to accept it. And we cannot enable it either.

And thus do four decades of conservative rhetoric melt, thaw, and resolve themselves into a dew. At least for the moment.

My dad used to say, if you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem. So I have made it a mission of my Speakership to raise our gaze and aim for a brighter horizon. Instead of talking about what politics is today, I want to talk about what politics can be. I want to talk about what our country can be…about what our Founders envisioned it to be. America is the only nation founded on an idea—not an identity. That idea is the notion that the condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life. Our rights are natural. They come from God, not government.

To say that America was not founded on an identity gives the lie to Patrick ("I am not a Virginian, but an American!") Henry. One of the bedrock debates at both Continental Congresses was whether or not the people on this continent were British or something new called Americans. I feel safe in saying that the latter position carried the day. Also, the notion that the condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life would have come as some surprise to any of those Americans who were determined in the Constitution to be three-fifths of a person, and to the Founders who owned them. No banality unturned here.

But I first met Jack exactly where you'd expect…at Tortilla Coast. It's true…I was waiting on his table. I didn't bother him that day, but I told a friend I'd love to have the chance to work for him. And, as luck would have it, such an opening soon arose. The thing about Jack was, he was an optimist all the way. He refused to accept that any part of America–or the American Idea–could be written off. Here was a conservative willing—no, eager—to go to America's bleakest communities and talk about how free enterprise could lift people out of poverty. These were areas that hadn't seen a Republican leader come through in years, if ever.

Apocryphal now! This seems odd, as though Ryan were his own Parson Weems and as though the story about waiting on Jack Kemp at Tortilla Coast were his very own cherry tree. My understanding was that, through his family's political connections, Ryan already was working on Capitol Hill as an aide to Wisconsin Senator Bob Kasten and, later, for then Senator Sam Brownback. And, anyway, his whole bootstraps narrative is demonstrably bogus.

But in a confident America, we aren't afraid to disagree with each other. We don't lock ourselves in an echo chamber, where we take comfort in the dogmas and opinions we already hold. We don't shut down on people—and we don't shut people down. If someone has a bad idea, we tell them why our idea is better. We don't insult them into agreeing with us. We try to persuade them. We test their assumptions. And while we're at it, we test our own assumptions too.

Confident America is the label on the new bottle of the same old snake oil. It's also the set-up for the real punchline of this extended joke.

I'm certainly not going to stand here and tell you I have always met this standard. There was a time when I would talk about a difference between "makers" and "takers" in our country, referring to people who accepted government benefits. But as I spent more time listening, and really learning the root causes of poverty, I realized I was wrong. "Takers" wasn't how to refer to a single mom stuck in a poverty trap, just trying to take care of her family. Most people don't want to be dependent. And to label a whole group of Americans that way was wrong. I shouldn't castigate a large group of Americans to make a point. So I stopped thinking about it that way—and talking about it that way. But I didn't come out and say all this to be politically correct. I was just wrong. And of course, there are still going to be times when I say things I wish I hadn't. There are still going to be times when I follow the wrong impulse.

I'm accustomed to the cynicism of politicians. I've grown comfortable with a certain level of cynicism in myself. But this is just breathtaking. "I was wrong when I stated what I have believed since I bought my first pair of Ayn Rand footie pajamas. I shouldn't do that, but I might do it again, especially if the political winds shift again." It is here where we note that, barely a week ago, Ryan sat down with John Harwood and scoffed at what he called "redistributive" tax reform—that is, any tax reform that doesn't shove all the money upwards to the people who have coddled Ryan throughout his political career—as well as once again promoting the block-granting of most of the tattered federal safety net so the likes of Rick Snyder and Scott Walker can remunerate their cronies. No matter how cynical you become, as Lily Tomlin once said, it's hard to keep up.

Long before I worked for him, Jack Kemp had a tax plan that he was incredibly passionate about. He wasn't even on the Ways and Means Committee and Republicans were deep in the minority back then. So the odds of it going anywhere seemed awfully low. But he was like a dog with a bone. He took that plan to any audience he could get in front of. He pushed it so hard that he eventually inspired our party's nominee for president—Ronald Reagan—to adopt it as his own. And in 1981 the Kemp-Roth bill was signed into law, lowering tax rates, spurring growth, and putting millions of Americans back to work.

And all it took was the brutal recession of 1982 and three decades of crushing income inequality and murderous wage stagnation. He's still a true believer. Remember, he's sorry for all those terrible things he's said about the poor, but he might say them again, and he'll feel even more sorry.

Biggest. Fake. Ever.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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