Paul Ryan has always relied on the assumption that the people he answers to—constituents and reporters—are stupid.

This is why he dresses up his routine deceptions with condescension while slathering us with Eddie Haskell-esque flattery. It’s why he prefaces his highly spun talking points with the proviso that he doesn’t “want to get too wonky here.”

Ryan shows he thinks you’re stupid with fancy graphics suggesting the complexity of the tax code stems from its number of income tax brackets rather than from its vast menu of deductions and other loopholes.

The U.S. tax code is too complicated. ← Retweet if you agree. #BetterWay pic.twitter.com/Do9qmHskzd — Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) December 11, 2016

He shows he thinks you’re stupid by making demonstrably dishonest comments about the instability of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

And, perhaps most importantly, he shows he thinks you’re stupid in the many ways he protects President Donald Trump from accountability. On Monday night, during a CNN-moderated town hall event in Wisconsin, he offered the following justification for opposing a congressional resolution that would censure Trump for coddling white supremacists: