Speculation abounds that someone finally has goat pictures on Paul Ryan damning enough to make him call it quits. Mueller? Trump? Putin?
No, no, and no.
Occam’s razor, people.
Paul Ryan is 48 years old, smack in the middle of Gen X. And, as those of us who share his generational affliction know deep in our bones, and the rest of you learned from Gizmodo back in 2011, both Paul Ryan and Gen X are sick of your bullshit.
Ryan calling it quits makes perfect sense. He’s tired of waiting for the boomers to get out of the way or die. Boomer congressmen—and let’s be clear, I don’t mean men in a gender-inclusive way, but male men—have attached to their seats, limpet-like, and are going nowhere. Ever.
The millennials, meanwhile, and the generation after them that no one has bothered to differentiate from millennials except the people in it and the folks at Pew, are getting all the good press. And the bad press, but all press is good press.
I’m not a Paul Ryan fan. He picked the losing team, as far as getting it right for history goes, and he can curl up fetal in the bed he made for himself and deal with that choice for the rest of forever as far as I’m concerned.
But I get him.
Gen X has been calling it quits for a while now. It’s what we do, and we do it well.
We understand there is no upside to anything, but certainly not to sticking around for a lost cause. We’ll just do all the work and take all the blame and watch our hair thin and our friends die way too young and struggle to figure out SnapChat not realizing it’s totally pointless and never get the credibility or credit we have earned and deserve.
So go home, Paul Ryan. Let Randy Bryce step up to serve. You know you like him and you’ll probably vote for him. Because you, like me, like most in our generation, are secretly part of the burn it all down caucus. Take pleasure in seeing the GOP implode and know that it would have happened with you there, so it might as well happen without you.
And know that whatever job you take next, it won’t be selling out, because your selling out happened long, long ago. Now, it’s just about self-preservation, and I won’t begrudge you that.
By the way, Randy Bryce is one of us, too, even if he is on the cusp. He’s been out there the longest, conserving his energy, building up an actual skill and accomplishing things that are real instead of striving in a bullshit world. He’ll do great. He’ll outlive the boomers, and he’ll welcome the millennials and the post-millennials. I can’t wait to see him in office.
nonsequiteuse 