Who Was Worse, Reagan or Thatcher?

Seems to me like Thatcher did more damage to her own country than Reagan... America was/is more right-wing than Britain, so Reagan's policies weren't as different from those of preceding governments as Thatcher's.

Though of course, when it comes to their effect on other countries, Reagan was worse.

I think it is difficult to answer properly coming from the UK. My instinctive (and thus emotional) answer is definitely Thatcher, and I'm not sure if it is possible to get through that. She certainly fucked up Britain more than Reagan did, which has a clear impact on my own existence and thus seems five million times worse.

Seems to me like Thatcher did more damage to her own country than Reagan...

OTuoMas

Still, it made me cringe when that statue of Reagan was unveiled in London... and you can't even attack it with a cricket bat because you'd probably get shot

Therein lies exactly the crux of the matter, and why I can't decide. And why I'm most interested in hearing from ppl in countries outside the UK or US as to which they think had the worst effect, globally. (x-posts to Tuomas.)

I'm British and therefore have that kneejerk hatred of Thatcher, but I did spend the 80s in the US, so I also have the kneejerk anti-Reagan twitch. I think perhaps Thatcher's effects on her own country were greater by comparison with previous 20th Century governments, but I think that Reagan's worldwide effects were perhaps more profound, though oddly, he seems to have come off better due to how much *worse* American government became during the 21st Century. (Though Cameron is certainly doing his best on that score.)

There should be an option for a tie.

Was Reagan as 'in charge' as Thatcher though, I wonder? He was generally portrayed in the UK as dimwit movie actor, I don't remember anyone having very much respect for him - left OR right - which is why William Hague trotting out that right wing propaganda garbage about him 'winning the Cold War' at said unveiling was a bit surprising

... tho it's true that Hague is a different generation to those Tory ministers who were laughing up their sleeves at Reagan in the 80s

Canadian, bored by both of them--and by our own version at the time, Mulroney. I followed the '84 presidential election, otherwise paid hardly any attention at all. My antipathy to both isn't strong enough to cast a vote.

America was/is more right-wing than Britain

the finnish view

I almost think it's worse if Reagan wasn't as directly involved as Thatcher. He could say "here's the direction I want the country to go" and let his Meeses and Regans and Haigs and Weinbergers do the thuggery.

haughey write-in, with clemenza in terms of attitude to this pair. Also too young to really have understood the politics at the time.

Not sure why anyone outwith the UK would care about Thatcher at all

I think what edges it towards Reagan for me is the AIDS thing. That many of Thatcher's policies created misery and poverty, but not the huge in-the-millions numbers of actual *deaths* that were the legacy of Reagan-era AIDS policies.

But I don't have any actual evidence on the worldwide effects of that beyond vague rememberings of Reagan actively defunding foreign aid programs that included *any* contraception, even if used to combat the AIDS pandemic. The scale of the loss of life, if that understanding is true, seems to me so incomprehensible.

Western Hemisphere, but with British gf who's family has been deeply, deeply affected in a disastrous way by Thatcher. Losing jobs, being pushed from already quite tough living conditions into sheer poverty. Causing a lot of grief and illness. And one can still see Thatcher's devastating effect on the UK today.

I know all I need to know about Reagan and the consequences of his reign, but really can't see beyond Thatcher in this one. Even without all of the above.

Only recently found out Reagan was funding the Khmer Rouge/Pol Pot in exile after the Vietnamese kicked them out of Cambodia, which I mean wtf

Thatcher might've loved ol' Pinochet etc but doesn't really compare

And yes, I do think that the whole hands-off, abnegation, give the reigns over to aides and corporate interests rather than through active control is somehow worse, in Reagan's case. That Thatcher, no matter how cold-blooded and calculating, at least had *some* political philosophy and thought behind what she was doing, no matter how evil and wrong-headed, which Reagan seemed to signify almost an *absence* of morality, ethics, political thought, just handing things off to whoever shouted the loudest or bought the most votes.

Was going to mention Pinochet, I would add South Africa + the Hunger Strikes (that's a can of worms though) to Thatcher's list of crimes (xp)

What's more evil Kate, being evil *with* a political philosophy behind it (Thatcher) or being evil *without* a political philosophy behind it (Reagan)? I tend to believe the former is more evil, because it seems more conscious...

that was one question i had- have either of them been caught personally enriching themselves using their influence, or were both solely ideologically driven?

I tend to think the latter, because having and believing in a wrong-headed philosophy is combat-able in a way that kind of absence and vacuum and apathy really isn't. Doing something you *think* is right, albeit for all the wrong-headed reason, shows at least some kind of ethical compass, in a way that a-morality is much more terrifying, and much harder to fight. x-post

Both Thatcher and Reagan blocked sanctions against South Africa.

at what point did thatcher become thatcher? as education secretary in the heath govt. she proposed massive, massive expansion of education & spending on education -- which no one talks about, now, because it doesn't fit What We Know About Thatcher

that was one question i had- have either of them been caught personally enriching themselves using their influence

Thatcher would have gone without pay, in fact she'd have probably paid the Treasury out of her own pocket for the pleasure of grinding the miners into the dust

and i disagree that purely ideological 'evil' (troubling term, rly) is more reprehensible than personal-gain political cynicism

at what point did thatcher become thatcher? as education secretary in the heath govt. she proposed massive, massive expansion of education & spending on education -- which no one talks about, now, because it doesn't fit What We Know About Thatcher

When Heath blew it and lost to the miners I suppose

oh karen said that, better than i did too.

The perception of Reagan as a dimwit who allowed aides to manipulate him remains one of liberalism's more pernicious clichés.

We're still feeling the effects of Reaganism here: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have been better Reagans than Reagan himself. Obama announced yesterday that he was ready to cut Social Security benefits for current and future seniors. This is Reaganism's true legacy – creating and sustaining a fear of government.

I tend to think the latter, because having and believing in a wrong-headed philosophy is combat-able in a way that kind of absence and vacuum and apathy really isn't. Doing something you *think* is right, albeit for all the wrong-headed reason, shows at least some kind of ethical compass, in a way that a-morality is much more terrifying, and much harder to fight. x-post

― Karen D. Tregaskin, Friday, 8 July 2011 14:34 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

You've got a point there. It's not as clear-cut, I think. A-morality is definitely way more terrifying because it can't be 'reasoned' with, can't be countered with a different philosophy because there isn't a philosophy to fight in the first place.

tom d. i feel like thatcher and the miners is a cartoon, now, too

key q.: in what way was the outcome of the miners' strike not inevitable

The funding of proxy wars in Central America and the selection of federal and SCOTUS judges more conservative than him are other noxious elements.

Reagan had one huge plus: in the biggest blow to the he-was-a-dimwit line of thinking, he ignored every one of his advisors and opened negotiations with Gorby. They went so well that by 1988 the likes of George Will and Newt Gingrich were hauling out Chamberlain allusions and denouncing him as a sellout.

tom d. i feel like thatcher and the miners is a cartoon, now, too

Hilarious cartoon that one is. But what do you mean by cartoon exactly?

The perception of Reagan as a dimwit who allowed aides to manipulate him remains one of liberalism's more pernicious clichés.

Might be a liberal cliche in the US, but I'd say that was the perception of Reagan in the 80s on both right and left in the UK, can't speak for anywhere else

... but that's British snobbishness towards the US for you

But we're not arguing for the perception, are we?

I feel like blaming Thatcher or Reagan for what took place in western Capitalism in the 80s is far too simplistic. They were figureheads for political forces whose time had come, and if not them there wd probably have been another figurehead ready to go. Difficult to think of anything positive that Thatcher attempted as PM, but I'm inclined to agree with Alfred that Reagan's arms reduction strategy was, on balance, a good thing. On the other hand I feel like Reagan was probably more pernicious for the world simply by dint of governing the more powerful nation. I will probably not vote, since there's no option to sit on the fence, but I would lean slightly towards Thatch being worse I guess.

anglo-irish agreement fwiw

I'll give her that one

Loath as I am to mention "historical forces," a reaction to liberalism had to come eventually, and economically Reagan wasn't as much a menace as Clinton and (as we're seeing now) Obama. The man raised taxes several times and oversaw the most concentrated revision of the tax code in decades (unfortunately the corporate loopholes were reopened under Clinton).

Clemenza, did Mulroney do anything on par with the policies listed in the OP? He privatized unprofitable Crown corporations and implemented free trade but afaik he never waged the kind of all-out war (almost literally in Thatcher's case) on organized labour that these two engaged in. Never had the sense that he went for supply-side in the same way either, unless I'm unaware of something. He raised taxes if anything, right? The GST might have been an improvement on the manufacturers' tax. I kind of feel like the real neoliberal shift came with the Liberals' 1995 budget, actually, but I'm no economist.

On social issues, Mulroney extended Trudeau's policies on bilingualism, multiculturalism, and immigration. On foreign policy, Clark actually took a stand against some of Reagan's Central American shenanigans. BM had some real accomplishments on ozone and acid rain too. Man, I never thought I'd be defending this guy... I just have trouble equating him with Reagan/Thatcher.

The UK was in truly dire straits in the late 70s, right? What was Labour's alternative strategy? Serious question: I've no love for what Thatcher did; I'm just curious what alternatives were being proposed.

Clinton v Blair would be an interesting poll to run bcuz I suspect my gut feeling (Blair worse) would probably be wrong if I examined Clinton beyond "we supported him coz he was pro-choice, that's all"

In an odd way I do think Canadians & Irish, though they will naturally resent their own leaders most, are better placed to answer the OP. Sleeping next to an evil giant gives you a better perspective than sleeping underneath one!

I'm still puzzling over the OP question!

"we supported him coz he was pro-choice, that's all"

I've kind of suspected this was the main reason many left-of-centre people supported Clinton, considering his policies on the death penalty, the Defence of Marriage Act, deregulation, ...

The UK was in truly dire straits in the late 70s, right? What was Labour's alternative strategy? Serious question: I've no love for what Thatcher did; I'm just curious what alternatives were being proposed.

Continued in dire straits (even worse possibly?) throughout Thatcher's first term then came the Falklands and she was saved and a lot of other people were doomed. Pretty sure the Falklands was the birth of the Thatcher we know and love.

Yeah, if you look at the unemployment figures and things like the dollar:pound exchange rate, the 70s looks lovely compared to 1980-86…

I was only equating Mulroney in the sense that he bored me just as much as the other two at the time. The '80s were my 20s: not married, no kids, and bouncing around from job to job (before I got into teaching), the decade was about seeing bands, getting drunk, and beginning to write about music. Mulroney, Reagan, and Thatcher barely existed for me.

I think Reagan's AIDs denial was awful too, but a) I wasn't much better, being fairly oblivious to AIDs till the middle of the decade (and especially till I read And the Band Played On, and b) Alfred has made the case that it was a generational thing, and Mondale or anybody else wouldn't have been any better. I don't agree with the second part of that, but I understand the generational argument.

Also North Sea oil revenue began to kick in, allowing the country to actually afford having millions on the dole... at last! (xxp)

Being a petrostate had its benefits!

Thatcher also had Clause 28 and Christopher Monckton calling for AIDS quarantine camps on her watch too…

Seeing as I left the UK in 1979 and arrived back in 1998, I pretty much missed the entirety of Thatcher's reign so really only know about the details second hand. (n.b. I was never an American citizen, so I was never able to vote in the US, either so my "support" for whatever candidate was fairly symbolic at best.)

I honestly don't know that AIDS denial was a generational thing, I don't buy that excuse - because it's fairly established that for a large swathe of the right wing, the attitude towards any kind of sex (let alone gay sex) was that it is a SIN and if you INDULGE in it you DESERVE to be PUNISHED and therefore get PREGNANT or DIE. As shown by their attitudes towards reproductive health. For one side, it's a medical issue, for the other it's a moral issue, and that isn't generational, it's along the political divide. I certainly don't think that Mondale or any on that side would be denying foreign aid support to any charities that gave out condoms as part of their program. (This is so firmly set in my head I'm going to have to check it with my friend in NYC who works in reproductive health rights.)

Only recently found out Reagan was funding the Khmer Rouge/Pol Pot in exile after the Vietnamese kicked them out of Cambodia, which I mean wtf

Carter did too.

There goes my vague impression that Carter was sort of OK...

My personal feeling on this poll is that Reagan was worse for his foreign policy, not that Thatcher's was saintly or anything. But then I'm aware that my experience of growing up under Thatcher wasn't that bad compared to others' - my mum always had a job, albeit part-time waitressing/barmaid jobs, there were no mines around where I grew up as far as I'm aware, and my mum did pretty well out of the right-to-buy scheme.

I seemed to get the impres

actually, forget it. I'm not reliving it.

Voted thatch. Am eng. That's all.

There goes my vague impression that Carter was sort of OK...

He was a terrible dress rehearsal for Reagan. In the U.S. he commands no respect as a president.

i always forget carter even was president

If the Simpson's are to be believed, he's history's greatest monster.

ugh "Simpsons" no apostrophe

I'm voting for Reagan just to piss off apolitical Brits.

we should retitle thread, "Who Was Worse According to Our Favorite Post-Punk Bands: Reagan or Thatcher?"

Which 80s demagog inspired the best post-punk bands/songs would be a good poll. And on that one, I almost certainly go for Thatcher.

what would the Mekons think

That wouldn't be a hard choice for this Minutemen fan.

Crass vs Dead Kennedys

Any account of Reagan's mostly heinous foreign policy has to accept the most obnoxiously repeated of right wing toady talking points: he really did inspire jailed dissidents behind the Iron Curtain and in Cuba. I live in a city where even those Cubans who view his presidency as a disappointment or farce took heart from his speeches at the time.

i'm tempted to say Thatcher b/c of her sheer unabashed nastiness (and for all his faults not to mention the actually nasty undertow of his actual politics, Reagan generally didn't come off as a nasty man). OTOH, Reagan's legacy was far more pernicious (to the point that we now have a nominally Democratic President who in some ways is to the right of Reagan).

xpost: Reagan is genuinely revered in Poland. (so's Papa Bush if my relatives are any guide.)

to the point that we now have a nominally Democratic President who in some ways is to the right of Reagan

This leads to my next question: If these people's policies were in fact terrible (and I'm inclined to believe that they were), why have they virtually defined the political centre since then? Thatcher was actually right that her political success can be measured by how far Labour's policies have shifted, wasn't she?

Again, theories of history apply. In America from 1932-1980 we had an unfettered belief in the federal government's obligation to act as neutral arbiter or in some cases enforce fairness; even the GOP subscribed. A counter-reaction had to assert itself.

Again, theories of history apply. In America from 1932-1980 we had an unfettered belief in the federal government's obligation to act as neutral arbiter or in some cases enforce fairness; even the GOP subscribed. A counter-reaction had to assert itself.

Sure, but there has to be some reason why people were willing to embrace this counter-reaction so wholeheartedly. (No strong counter-reaction against republicanism and representative democracy has emerged in American since independence, for example. There are social democratic Northern European countries that have only been marginally influenced by the neoliberal shift.) It's obvious enough to me why the Keynesian consensus emerged in the aftermath of the Depression and WW2. I even get that stagflation began to poke holes in that consensus in the 70s. But if most people seemed to experience that this reaction wasn't working, it seems like they would have abandoned it within a couple of decades, or at least considered abandoning it.

thatcher gave darren hayman that horrible song, so thatcher.

Right-wing Europeans are always scarier than right-wing Americans, IMO. The Americans always seem to have moderating influences.

http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/jamesbrolin.jpg vs. http://instinctmagazine.com/images/stories/blogs/jhigbee/july2011/meryl.jpg

my sense is that reagan kind of has to be worse because (as n.v. says) he was in charge of the most powerful country in the world? & therefore had a much more wide-ranging influence globally. i dunno. have we 'reclaimed' reagan yet?

who's we?

you know

"us"

I'm the only one on ILX who's read seven Reagan bios.

does that help?

There was something avuncular about Reagan. Thatcher was very condescending.

Hitchens has said that Thatcher "stank of sex," which is why she made so many of her circle hard for her.

heh al i guess im just wondering if theres a contrarian line of thought on the part of some liberals "reagan wasnt actually that bad for reasons x y"

the way there is for, for example, nixon. (or eisenhower, who seems to be accepted as a pretty good president by most center-left/liberal types)

i think regan has to leave before he can get reclaimed

Well, I said upthread that I endorse his instincts about dealing with Gorbachev, against the advise of every one of his advisors (George Schulz excepted; he needs a rehab too).

Hitchens has said that Thatcher "stank of sex"

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln4byiMyZF1qfcfhi.gif

Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but hasn't there been placed a Reagan statue in London last week?

I hated Reagan, let's be clear.

i think regan has to leave before he can get reclaimed

― ((( (Lamp), Friday, 8 July 2011 17:33 (4 hours ago) Permalink

Yeah. Are approx half of Britain's politicians and pundits going to still be fucking Thatcher's corpse when she's gone?

what would the Mekons think

If Mars invades we'll all be allies
Reagan Thatcher - won't last long
Reagan Thatcher - dead and gone

(or something like that, I haven't listened to the song for two decades)

i'm going to vote for reagan simply because he actually terrified me as a child whenever i'd see him on tv. he looked like a wax statue that was melting or something.

as for their actual policies, i'd probably still vote reagan, because though i'm sure his efforts at iron curtain raising did inspire people on the soviet side, i'm not 100 percent convinced his efforts were wholly noble (plus i wouldnt exactly say russia's doing so hot now), and we can throw in the bungling of the afghan/soviet war in terms (though the real fallout wouldnt start until he was out of office), the various shennanigans the cia got up to (with or "without" his knowledge), etc etc.

as for songs inspired by them, i always do chuckle whenever i hear "california uber alles" now. its like a songwriter in the early 30s being worried that weimar decadence would continue unchecked.

i recently stumbled on a youtube video where thatcher was responding to a woman who was pressing her about the opening of the falklands war. the sense of entitlement, condescension and bottled-up fury coming from thatcher was so strong that it was almost scary to watch. i half-expected her to scream 'off with her head!' at any moment.

the 'idea/legacy' of Reagan has been more damaging to the world than either of what these two actually did

she does have one of the best hatable politician voices in the era of recorded sound.

reagan's diplomacy with gorby does have to be balanced against his record on other foreign-policy matters: grenada, the iran-contra shit and the first-term massive arms escalation (admittedly started by carter), not to mention his awful record on civil liberties and executive powers (as i think i've noted before, he used more signing statements than any president until dubya). on the other hand, all of his bad qualities have been topped by most of his successors, so it's easier to see him in a better light now.

i guess to make a fair choice we'd have to wait until thatcher's gone and see how much her reputation gets blown up and idealized beyond belief.

i always found it kinda weird that 'california uber alles' was about jerry brown -- did ppl really find him that scary?

They re-recorded it about Reagan

i have to imagine it was either a joke about hippie-haters or jello biafra really was dumb enough to think that a.) reagan wasn't on the horizon or b.) jerry brown wouldn't get his ass handed to him by any number of other republicans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpwdcmjBgNA

i suspect that thatcher did more harm to her own country during her own tenure that reagan did.

yet i think reagan's legacy -- not entirely fairly to him, perhaps -- has been worse and longer lasting than maggie's. do brits carry the torch for thatcher the way american republicans do for reagan (conveniently ignoring the times he raised taxes or negotiated with commies)?

i don't doubt that (american) taxes in the '70s were too high and that the government was wasteful and poorly run. but his "i'm from the government and i'm here to help" catchphrase has been turned into inviolable gospel for the (american) right, and bullshit supply-side economics took hold under him.

it is still kind of amazing that in a six-election span that included fucking *watergate*, the democrats only won the presidency once.

voting for reagan because i see his influence as both more international in its era and more dominant in contemporary politics. perhaps this view is a product of my american blinders, but so be it.

so much to be ashamed of in the reagan era: aids denial, indirect support for apartheid, CIA crimes & misdemeanors around the world, undeclared war on nicaragua, supply-side & "trickle down" economics, emergence and coddling of the radicalized evangelical right, initial moves to repeal glass-steagall & otherwise deregulate banking/lending, anti-intellectualism, etc.

otoh, his administration did work to limit nuclear weapons, raised taxes when appropriate and closed corporate loopholes, negotiated in good faith with the rooskies, inspired eastern europe, etc. and as alfred LS points out, as bad as he seemed to american liberals and progressives in his moment, he wasn't, as it turns out, all that much worse than the democrats who've succeeded him. ;_;

Put it this way, if they put a Reagan statue up in the USA, would it get attacked? Probably not.

whereas a Thatch statue would need a 24hour sentry guard with dogs and rifles.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2580097.stm

Exactly. And he was just the first in the queue.

sort of sad that america lacks that kind of mad-dog liberal/progressive contingent. i mean, we have the oregon anarchists, but just a few of them, endangered species...

yeah but your lefty comedians are funnier, so there's that

in jello's defense, jerry brown has always been a bit of a grandstanding, opportunistic phony chameleon.

wake up every morning wishing the falklands were run by argentinian fascists... terrible woman

also, the dirty little secret about Ronnie Reagan is that he pretty much abandoned supply-side after the first two years or so (when he bowed to reality and raised taxes) and was always something of a stealth Keynesian (all of that defense pork that actually really started under Carter).

that would really suck!

xp

i'm impressed that 'stealth keynesiasm' is actually a 'thing'

when lord skidelsky is a proponent, it's probably not v. stealthy

also, the dirty little secret about Ronnie Reagan is that he pretty much abandoned supply-side after the first two years or so (when he bowed to reality and raised taxes) and was always something of a stealth Keynesian (all of that defense pork that actually really started under Carter).

It must be repeated that Reagan's favorite president, to the consternation of his WFB, Jr. type friends, was FDR; and it was his malevolent PR genius that kept rewriting FDR as a natural GOP whose legacy was misread by Dems.

Nixon's "stealth Keynesianism" took the form of things like ordering the Defense Department to order a five year's supply of toilet paper about a year before the 1972 election, so as to pump the maximum amount of money into the economy so it would be humming in time to trounce (as it turned out) George McGovern (who Nixon stealthily aided by playing dirty tricks on his Democratic opponents). But we were discussing two other villains...

... of whom I voted Thatcher, not for her lasting malign influence in the larger world (Ronnie's legacy was worse), but simply for her systematic hands-on demolition of every scrap of what the Labor party had ever accomplished, to the furthest extent she could reach and a bit more.

Reagan seemed to signify almost an *absence* of morality, ethics, political thought,

OTM. As an American, Thatcher just seems like a bog standard conservative to me. Reagan was something far more sinister. Starting from his role in putting mentally ill people onto the streets as governor of CA, to the October Surprise (actually a reverse october surprise), having a CIA agent as a vice president, Iran-Contra, CIA cocaine, and the overall rise of the religious right. To me this seems like pitting a kind of standard, privatizing, union-busting conservative against a much larger organized crime operation. You can't really look at Reagan in isolation without considering the entire effect of the Reagan/Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld operation. But then I don't know much about Thatcher.

Starting from his role in putting mentally ill people onto the streets as governor of CA

'Care in the community' began under Thatcher.

She was also responsible for the vile poll tax, and punishing Scotland for not voting for her by introducing it there early.

'Care in the community' began under Thatcher.

What was the immediate result? At least people still received some sort of care through the NHS right? Is homelessness really as big of a problem in the UK as it is in the US? Or particularly in California?

She was also responsible for the vile poll tax, and punishing Scotland for not voting for her by introducing it there early.

A poll tax is wrong but just seems like another example of old fashioned conservatism. It's not exactly "dirty tricks", is it? She must have engaged in some of those kind of shenanigans though right? Are there any allegations about Thatcher actually subverting the democratic process in a potentially illegal way?

reagan was nothing compared to 'the iron lady'. a great woman, and a great leader. let's hope the spirit of thatcher can help the latest tory government make britain 'great' again

her systematic hands-on demolition of every scrap of what the Labor party had ever accomplished, to the furthest extent she could reach and a bit more.

― Aimless, Saturday, July 9, 2011 4:41 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

im pretty sure we still have an nhs, state arts funding, a comparatively lavish benefits system, etc. she enacted important anti-union laws and pulled a bunch of other shit but she did not enact the systematic demolition of 'every scrap' of what labour achieved.

his tory mayne

wake up every morning wishing the falklands were run by argentinian fascists... terrible woman

― would s*m*a*s*h 1994 (history mayne), Saturday, 9 July 2011 00:29

wonder wtf this is supposed to mean

i guess im saying that retaiking the falklands wasn't some great crime against humanity, and that its collateral effect in argentina was good. obviously that wasn't anticipated, and there is a backstory of government incompetence in handling the falklands situation prior to the invasion, which is why a large part of the british right opposed the war.

i guess im saying that retaiking the falklands wasn't some great crime against humanity,

Agreed, personally I wouldn't have mentioned it in the original post, she's got so many other crimes worth considering.

i suppose there are the lingering suspicions that Thatcher in some sense escalated the stand-off over the Falklands when a show of intent might've been enough. i don't know that we'll ever discover the truth about that. Argentinian fascists are v. bad but so is left-over scraps of British imperialism imo. Don't believe the death toll (and empowerment of the Thatcher government) was justified by the liberation.

worth remembering that Falklands adventure was green-lighted by the Reagan govt.

but not before Al Haig (the self-described "Vicar of American foreign policy") attempted shuttle diplomacy.

Thatcher was a synonym for satan in my house when i was growing up, can't really not vote for her.

worth remembering that it's a nonsense that las malvinas are brit territory in the first place and that hundreds of mainly young, mainly conscripted men died in the war.

as detailed on another thread, thatcher's personal friend pinochet indirectly ordered the execution of my father, which luckily didn't happen. so i'll have to go for her.

Reagan removed the solar panels from the White House roof and appointed James Watt ("After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back" was a plausible quote) as Secretary of the Interior.

Thatcher created the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, one of the premier CC research institutions, out of concern with greenhouse emissions.

im pretty sure we still have an nhs, state arts funding, a comparatively lavish benefits system, etc. she enacted important anti-union laws and pulled a bunch of other shit but she did not enact the systematic demolition of 'every scrap' of what labour achieved.

― would s*m*a*s*h 1994 (history mayne), Saturday, 9 July 2011 07:59 (Yesterday) Bookmark

So she didn't get to finish the job, but can you doubt her intentions?

Don't look at intentions. Study her eye shadow and hair.

If you're going to base your vote on eyeshadow, you have to imagine Reagan with the same eyeshadow, to be fair.

I voted Thatch, anyway, based more on visceral hatred than cool examination of facts, legacy, hair or eyeshadow, sorry Kate.

As an Australian, I feel kind of removed from both, but Regan = nuclear war to my 14 year old mind ("we begin bombing in 5 minutes lol!" and so on). I was aware of the dire straits the UK was in at the time with the miners strikes and riots and so on, but it wasnt as visceral an impact as the boogeyman of nuclear annihalation that felt like it was all Regan's fault.

so are you saying That Was Then, This is Now?

ill say this for thatch, 80s tv was much better in england than in the US

especially on that very special episode of "Family Ties" in which the Keating family visited.

everyone on about Reagan's legacy = otm. Seems like the damage Reagan done is somewhat quaint compared to the run of Clinton/W/Obama...

I mean I know a lot of Britishers hate Blair and Brown, but it didn't seem like they were so bad for so long that it made Thatcher seem not really all that bad?

As facile as this sounds, I'm a hundred times more willing to condemn erstwhile, nominal opponents of Reaganism and Thatcherism like Blair, Clinton, and Obama than Reagan and Thatcher themselves.

TS: john major vs george h. w. bush.

Bush is far worse! During his House faces in the late sixties he opposed the Civil Rights Act cuz that's what Texas demanded. He remained a Nixon lapdog until his position was, as they say, no longer tenable (Nixon himself on Bush: "He's not a leader; he's a man you appoint to things"). As CIA director he authorized the creation of Team B, a collection of US foreign policy satraps whose purpose was to ignore the CIA and use its own intelligence.

He also the dirtiest prez campaign of my lifetime in '88.

I have warmer memories about Bush pere than I did in '93, but this is a man who always -- always -- got history wrong.

*House races

In the case of Obama, is it just that he hasn't really done much to change Reagan's legacy or has he actually implemented policies that further extend Reaganite principles?

Clinton was worse (so far).

Eh? Why did this not get a bump but the parody thread did? I suppose it's still got a couple of days to run. Just wanted to know if there were any late contributions.

nominal opponents of Reaganism and Thatcherism like Blair

They don't come much more nominal than Blair!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

39 votes in total for Thatcher
25 votes in total for Reagan

I am pleased with these results.

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C10382-15A.jpg

Nice to see the usual nuanced considered analysis from Britishes politics fans.

I actually ended up forgetting to vote in mine own poll. (Would have voted Reagan)

But man. Really?

Reagan was probably worse overall but I dunno, Thatcher still feels like a scar or a faultline down the middle of this country in a way that Reagan maybe doesn't? Maybe that's partly because the US have had an even worse President since.

also i suppose because right wing dickery is default mode for US politics. i've started to read David Kynaston's Austerity Britain and altho i will probably quibble with his choice of date i think his argument that the Thatcher government signalled the killing of a v. British post-war utopia holds a ton of weight

so ignore me chuntering last night really, tho the point remains that because of circumstances Reagan was capable of a greater objective volume of evil

Also, a bit weird given how far slanted ILX has become within the past few years, more British voted than American? So I guess that this is an issue that still ~matters~ to British people when many Americans of the same age can't really remember Reagan? But like Matt says, Thatcher is still an open wound for the British.

also i suppose because right wing dickery is default mode for US politics

that wasn't really the case before reagan. he legitimized and popularized a political stance that was definitely in the minority before 1980.

Reagan was capable of a greater objective volume of evil

Really this comes down to the size and world influence of the country he was in charge of, though, doesn't it? If that's your main focus, the poll is pointless and the question may as well have been 'which is bigger: USA or UK?'

I don't think it's so much that as "who is capable of doing the larger amount of damage to the world around them?" in which case, maybe it's Empire Hangover but I do think that smaller countries "with influence" can punch above their population weight. Especially in terms of doing harm. I don't know if this is more or less the case now that everything is so globalised that one small country on the other side of the globe can set off a series of transactions which collapse a seemingly unrelated country's economy. But size and effect are not necessarily correlated, either in population or landmass.

Well, Reagan had more support/votes across the US electorate than Thatcher did across the UK electorate...

also i suppose because right wing dickery is default mode for US politics. i've started to read David Kynaston's Austerity Britain and altho i will probably quibble with his choice of date i think his argument that the Thatcher government signalled the killing of a v. British post-war utopia holds a ton of weight

― graveshitwave (Noodle Vague), Friday, July 29, 2011 11:26 AM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark

This interests me very much, would you recommend this book?

yeah i've only dipped so far but he uses contemporary sources brilliantly and from what i've read of his analysis it's mature and coherent

Thanks man. See I thought, from a review I read somewhere, that the book stays really close to the '45-'51 period. Which is necessary and great in itself, but I'd be even more interested if he also casts a light forward from that time on to Thatcher era Britain, connecting the dots. Which your comment seemed to suggest.

no that book is 45-51, and his second one covers 1951-57. the projected series will go thru to 1979 i think

but yeah he is always looking forward to 79 i think

Thanks, I'm going to pick it up!

I got a bit bogged down with that book TBH. Some excellent Pooterish stuff from the civil servant's diary that Kynaston dug up from the Mass Observation archives, though.

Bogged down how? Or why?

any Mass Observation stuff u can find is worth the read/watch

xp It's a doorstopper, and I think I just got a bit daunted and gave up. Perhaps down to my preference for macro-history rather than micro- and this is very much in the latter mould. Don't let me put you off though...

No that's very useful to know, Neil, thanks

would have voted Thatcher. i'm irish btw

also i suppose because right wing dickery is default mode for US politics

that wasn't really the case before reagan. he legitimized and popularized a political stance that was definitely in the minority before 1980.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, July 29, 2011 2:46 AM

Forget it J.D., it's Thatchertown.

to us europeans with our socialist utopias and taxpayer-funded national free money service, US politics is always gonna look a bit right-leaning

Some good Reagan hate from iatee and others on this thread: U.S. Presidents - Cold War and New Millennium Edition - I stand by my comments there.

This seems like the one to bump for Americans.

Oh, and ...

AIDS denial

... I voted Reagan.

Reagan will get bodies of water named after him.

there's already many puddles of piss named after thatcher