Ryan latest Republican to pack it in

Republicans were already sprinting for the exits in historic numbers, with fears of an impending electoral horror show driving them into political retirement before congressional elections this fall. Now their leader has joined the stampede. The highest-ranking member of the U.S. Congress, Paul Ryan — who as speaker of the House of Representatives controls which bills get votes and is third in line for the presidency — announced Wednesday that he’s retiring from politics later this year, at age 48.

He insisted his departure has nothing to do with the growing fear among Republicans that they might lose power and be forced to watch helplessly as a new Democratic majority spends two years blocking bills and tormenting President Donald Trump with congressional investigations.

Ryan said he’s still confident about the election, and is leaving for family reasons: “My dad died when I was 16 — the age my daughter is. And I just (don’t) want to be one of those people looking back on my life (wishing) I’d spent more time with my kids.”

But Ryan’s dramatic departure — barely two years after his party, on the brink of an internal civil war, turned to him as a popular unifier between the feuding factions of conservatives, moderates, libertarians, and populist nationalists—fits a larger pattern.

Pew Research calculates that this is the biggest number of departures for the Republican party before an election since a 1930 exodus, which came in the doldrums of the Great Depression.