It’s not easy judging a prospective leader. In 1955, Anthony Eden was the most impressive prime minister-in-waiting that Britain had ever seen. Put to the test in the greatest conflagration in world history, Eden had emerged with his reputation not only intact, but enhanced. He was brave, smart, absurdly handsome and experienced. And yet, within two years of taking over from Winston Churchill, he resigned as a broken man, having overseen the worst foreign policy blunder in Britain’s postwar history — until Iraq.
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All these accounts contain elements of truth, of course, but as the conservative commentator, T.E. Utley, frustratedly pointed out at the height of her power in the 1980s, almost all popular accounts of Thatcher underestimate the extent to which she was also, fundamentally, a far more pragmatic and skilful politician than she is usually given credit for, willing to dodge, weave and compromise to win power and then keep it. “It is inconceivable that her devotion to doctrine would ever persuade her to do anything which was plainly politically suicidal,” Utley observed.
The same kind of flexibility can be said of Ronald Reagan as well, although his ideologue successors have likewise conveniently forgotten this. Donald Trump has shown some of this, but he is too often in his own way, which is why this election is not a romp for him. Unfortunately, as noted in Tim Walz and Midwestern Resentment, it’s too tempting for politicians to simply spew talking points rather than speak to needs. It gins up the base but doesn’t get past that, which is why our gridlock is self-perpetuating.
Positive Infinity 