The ‘Thatcher’ Model for Women in High Office

Member Group : Jerry Shenk

Progressive feminists have been urging America to elect a female president for years. Undoubtedly, Americans would. The only question is, which woman?

Ironically, Hillary Clinton, a feminist favorite who has coveted the presidency for decades, has been rejected twice, once – in 2008 – solely by Democrats, including feminists.

But feminists disregard women like the late Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the United Kingdom’s longest-serving Prime Minister during and the most consequential woman of the Twentieth Century, perhaps because Lady Thatcher was Ms. Clinton’s (and Vice-President Kamala Harris’s) intellectual, ideological – not to mention capable and successful – antithesis.

The U.K. was known as “the sick man of Europe” when Thatcher took office: Labor unions pretty much ran things; trash blocked city streets; the International Monetary Fund had already bailed out its Treasury; and undisciplined civil “servants” were busily “managing” the nation’s decline.

In a memoir, Lady Thatcher observed, “[T]he British government…jammed a finger in every pie. It levied high rates of tax on work, enterprise, consumption, and wealth transfer. It planned development at every level…” and “managed the economy, macro-economically by Keynesian methods of fiscal manipulation, micro-economically by granting…subsidies… It nationalized industries directly by taking ownership, or indirectly by using its powers of regulation…

“No theory of government was ever given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect.”

Thatcher contemporary Arthur Shenfield quipped, “[T]he difference between the public and private sectors was that the private sector was controlled by government, and the public sector was controlled by no one. ”

That all sounds very much like America today.

Thatcher set out to eliminate what she called “the nanny state.” Her government broke powerful trade unions, privatized state-owned enterprises, cut spending and reduced budget deficits and the national debt. She promoted the free-market principles of Nobel Prize winning economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich A. Hayek, while fighting socialism at home and abroad.

Thatcher ultimately oversaw Britain’s longest post–World War II economic expansion during which real household incomes rose thirty-four percent on average.

Lady Thatcher’s steadfast support of personal freedoms, free markets and her opposition to tyranny earned her the title of “Iron Lady,” a sobriquet awarded by respectful Soviets.

The Iron Lady faced Britain’s challenges – economic decline, the debilitating effects of socialism, and the growing Soviet threat – head on. She prevailed at home and, along with United States Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Pope John Paul II and, only incidentally, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, was instrumental in bringing down the Iron Curtain.

Lady Thatcher considered a close strategic relationship with the United States to be crucial. A productive Thatcher/Reagan partnership promoted freedom and free markets.

Following Thatcher’s death in 2013, Richard Brookhiser wrote: “Length of tenure, accumulating blunders, and the inevitable tendency of the Tories [Thatcher’s party] towards stupidity and twitdom…finally unseated her. But she remained a presence in British political life, speaking up, especially on foreign policy, when things were dire. She was always a great friend of the United States, seeing our alliance as a prop of Britain’s power and independence, the counterweight to a continent of socialists and faint-hearts.”

And Clifford May compiled and published five essential guidelines from Lady Thatcher’s book, “Statecraft”:

  • Don’t believe that military interventions, no matter how morally justified, can succeed without clear military goals.
  • Don’t fall into the trap of imagining that the West can remake societies.
  • Don’t take public opinion for granted – but also don’t underrate the degree to which good people will endure sacrifices for a worthwhile cause.
  • Don’t allow tyrants and aggressors to get away with it.
  • And when you fight – fight to win.

May: “We would have done well to follow Thatcher’s rules over the past decade. We’d be wise to consult them in the years ahead.”

As a nation currently facing the same “inevitable tendency…towards stupidity and twitdom,” America would be wise to consult Thatcher’s rules today.

Perhaps too few American women hold high elective office, but, while we’re looking for worthy women, we should keep our eyes open for candidates – male or female – who are made of the same stuff as Lady Thatcher.

Sadly, people like Thatcher are in short supply today. The White House and the entire Biden administration have none.

https://www.pottsmerc.com/2023/05/08/jerry-shenk-the-thatcher-model-for-women-in-high-office/