Chris Roberts, American Renaissance, July 16, 2016

Dear Congressman Ryan,

The news wires are buzzing: You will be speaking at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. This is big news because Donald Trump will be the nominee, and you have said many harsh things about him. The headlines therefore read, “Paul Ryan Has Tricky Role of Unifier” and “Paul Ryan to Preach Unity.” It looks like you are being asked to help pull the team together. Please remember two things.

First, the other side hates you. There are plenty of differences between you and Mr. Trump, but they are nothing compared to the infinite loathing the media, academy, and professional leftists have for you. Have you forgotten what the Left said about you when you were picked as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012? The editors of Taki’s Magazine did a great round-up of the vitriol back when it happened. Some highlights below.

Gawker said this about you:

Paul Ryan evinces a total unconcern with the pain, poverty and illness of millions of people, while spending years shouting meaningless, disjointed numbers unfettered by reality. For any average citizen, that would be a strong indicator of crippling autism. In Washington, you’re a guru.

The Huffington Post, in a piece called “Paul Ryan: Poster Boy of Today’s Extreme GOP,” implied you were another Strom Thurmond:

Ryan’s extreme social conservatism, which he prefers to hide under his fiscal views, is a perfect example of the state of today’s GOP, which has been taken over by far-right ideologues who distract with tax and deficit talk as they seek to march civil rights back to the Dark Ages.

When you said you liked the lefty rock band “Rage Against the Machine,” a member of that band went to Rolling Stone to smear you:

I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta ‘rage’ in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he’s not raging against is the privileged elite he’s groveling in front of for campaign contributions.

The Washington Post ran an essay claiming your policy plans were “beating up on the poor.” The ladmag Esquire said, “He is a smiling, aw-shucks murderer of opportunity, a creator of dystopias in which he never will have to live.” The Daily Beast called you a liar.

There’s even more out there if you still think I’m being selective. Go read, “Satan, Thy Name is Paul Ryan.”

These days the media cast you as a “moderate” Republican, but four years ago they wanted your blood. Even today, Mr. Trump has done little to draw their fire away from you. Just look at the Center for American Progress, the most important leftist think tank. Their website Talk Poverty attacks you more often than it does Mr. Trump. Some headlines:

“House Rep. Mark Pocan on Poverty and What It’s Like to Share a County with Paul Ryan” (An interview with your fellow Wisconsinite about how bad you are)

“Paul Ryan’s ‘Anti-Poverty’ Plan” (A podcast about your evil policy plans.)

“Paul Ryan Just Changed the Definition of ‘Welfare.’ That’s Dangerous.”

“I Told Paul Ryan What It’s Like to Live in Poverty. Here’s What Happened Next.”

“Paul Ryan’s Forum on Expanding Opportunity Won’t Expand Opportunity”

“Paul Ryan’s Own District Disproves Everything He Says About Poverty”

Congressman Ryan, please do not think for a second that these people will ever respect you. Even your recent event in the black ghetto of Anacostia in Washington, DC, got you no sympathy from the Left–even though it was designed to show them how not-racist you are, right? Shy of becoming a full-fledged welfare-state-touting Obama-loving egalitarian, those who have attacked you will always be your enemies. Are you really willing to side with them and keep your distance from your own party’s nominee?

The second thing to remember are the facts about your state. You represent the First District of Wisconsin, a nice place from what I hear–much nicer than the nearby city of Milwaukee. While your southeastern corner of Wisconsin is a sleepy, bucolic place, Milwaukee is not. It is one of the most dangerous cities in the country. It has had that distinction for over a decade now, and the homicide rate keeps going up. It has a rape rate nearly three times that of the country at large.

Why the difference? Your district is over 90 percent white. Milwaukee is about 37 percent white, 40 percent black, and 17 percent Hispanic. Blacks and Hispanics commit a disproportionate amount of the crime in America, and Milwaukee is no exception. Not only that, blacks and Hispanics also commit a disproportionate amount of crime against whites. I welcome you to learn about this by checking this website regularly, and reading our report, “The Color of Crime.”

Surely you must remember that mass black-on-white crime spree at the Wisconsin State Fair a few years ago? I grew up in a neighboring state, and it even made a splash in our news cycle. Midwesterners like a good state fair, and that story frightened them. Well, that kind of violence is not uncommon in Milwaukee. Do you ever wonder how many whites now live in your district because they saw that kind of hateful violence in Milwaukee, or Chicago, or Detroit, and decided to move to where “the schools are good?” Ponder that for a moment.

And keep that in mind when you wonder why so many Americans on your “Republican team” look to Mr. Trump with admiration and hope. It is because, whether he likes it or not, he is the candidate for whites. He knows, just as the residents of Milwaukee do, that Hispanics bring crime. When white citizens see white police officers murdered by black killers, Mr. Trump declares himself the “law and order” candidate. This reassures whites. People are scared, and ever since anti-police rhetoric reached a fever pitch after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, crime has started back up in major cities. Researchers call it “the Ferguson effect.”

I know you care a lot about Ayn Rand and fiscal responsibility. So do I, but what do you think people care about more: the philosophy of a dead novelist, or living in a safe neighborhood? How much the national debt grows, or whether their children can ride public buses without fear? Mr. Trump speaks for those Americans who, for whatever reason, don’t live in safe parts of the country like your congressional district. They want physical safety more than fiscal responsibility.

When I grew up, I was often told to “walk a mile in someone’s shoes” before judging them. Perhaps you should walk through the streets of West Milwaukee without your usual bodyguards. It might change your view of Trump supporters.

Besides policy differences, you say you don’t like Mr. Trump’s rhetorical style. Admittedly, he can be vulgar, but Mr. Trump’s occasional potty mouth is nothing compared to the vicious incivility of what your enemies on the Left have said about you.

And they will wreck the things both you and Mr. Trump love about this country if they seize power along with Hillary Clinton. A Trump administration may or may not be fiscally conservative; a Clinton administration will certainly not be. It may surprise you to know that Mr. Trump has a high opinion of Ayn Rand, but leftist pundits who smear you smear her, too. I know you are very pro-life, so you must certainly want to defeat the candidate endorsed by Planned Parenthood. Mrs. Clinton won’t do anything about rising crime or Black Lives Matter any more than she did about the Benghazi attack–she has even started lecturing us all about “white privilege.”

I don’t believe in white privilege, and I imagine you don’t either. But I do believe in the privilege of living in places like Wisconsin’s First District. People who are swathed in the privilege of safety and prosperity have a certain blindness to the troubles in America’s cities. So please, go check out Milwaukee on your own sometime soon, remember how much the Left hates you and how loathsome a Clinton presidency will be, and then go all out for Mr. Trump. Let’s take this country back, together.