Paul Krugman: On Invincible Ignorance

The odds are that come January, Hillary Clinton will be president, and Paul Ryan still speaker. So I was interested to read what Ryan said in a recent interview with John Harwood. What has he learned from recent events? The answer is, nothing. Like just about everyone in the Republican establishment, Ryan is in denial about the roots of Trumpism, about the extent to which the party deliberately cultivated anger and racial backlash, only to lose control of the monster it created. Appalled Republicans may rail against Donald Trump’s arrogant ignorance. But how different, really, are the party’s mainstream leaders? Their blinkered view of the world has the veneer of respectability, may go along with an appearance of thoughtfulness, but in reality it’s just as impervious to evidence — maybe even more so, because it has the power of groupthink behind it.