The Left's Lame Efforts to Label Paul Ryan a Racist are Laughable

In the wake of the Romney/Ryan ticket’s defeat in 2012, progressive pundits engaged in a round of self-congratulation, spending considerable hours pontificating on the systemic and intractable defects plaguing the GOP. Some on the left observed that the Republican Party fails to appeal to young and minority voters because they are viewed as a party focused entirely on preserving the gains made by those who are already successful. They advised the GOP to devote their attention to the problems faced by everyday Americans, specifically those of the less fortunate. It may surprise you to know that partisan Democrats do not actually want to see the Republican Party succeed at this recalibration.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), in particular, has used his elevated status within his party to talk about poverty issues from a conservative perspective; that is, a perspective which fundamentally believes that ballooning safety net programs yield diminishing returns for benefit recipients and often foster a sense of dependency and hopelessness among long-term beneficiaries. But, in this mission, Ryan stepped on one of the many liberal landmines peppering the political landscape last week when he told a conservative radio host that persistent, transgenerational poverty in America’s “inner cities” should be a focus of policy makers.

“We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with,” Ryan said.

The progressive blogosphere, having keenly refined their senses to identify and decode racial “dog whistles” otherwise undetectable by the public at large, sprang into action. Think Progress’ Igor Volsky accused Ryan of invoking the virulent stereotyping of minorities as “lazy.” He added that, by citing the work of controversial author and libertarian political scientist Charles Murray, Ryan had revealed that he, too, shares Murray’s view that “African-Americans are, as a population, less intelligent than whites due to genetic differences.”

Read the rest of this op-ed HERE.

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