Sarah Palin is definitely not the new Margaret Thatcher, or at least not in the opinion of Maggie’s staff. When the Governor told reporters that she would like to meet the Prime Minister during her world tour next month, a Thatcher aide reportedly said, “Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.” American conservatives were outraged, European liberals were pleasantly surprised. But why would the woman who forged perhaps the most important transatlantic political romance in modern history (when he died, Thatcher called Ronald Reagan “one of my closest political and dearest personal friends”) reject the advances of the most archetypal of contemporary American conservatives? We might presume that the aide was talking out of turn, that he had “gone rogue”. But the “nuts” jibe actually reflects a profound cultural difference between the British and American right. Beyond a dislike for taxes and deficits, the two have less and less in common as each year passes.
When Thatcher was Prime Minister, American and British conservatives were bosom buddies. British monetarists took their inspiration from Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economics, and both administrations watched each other’s fiscal experiments with interest. In foreign policy there were isolated differences – Reagan was a multilateralist, Thatcher was a fan of the nuclear deterrent. But they both believed Communism could be defeated and were united in their disregard for detent. Back then, The Lady kept an open door for visiting American conservatives. In 1975, she even met with Alabama Governor George Wallace (as did Labour PM Hard Wilson). Wallace was the man who declared “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” at his inauguration, the first salvo in a violent struggle to keep Alabama’s schools racially segregated. He was married to a former water-ski champion and had an unpleasant habit of constantly spitting into a handkerchief, regardless of the stature of the company he was in. For redneck nuttiness, Wallace was at the top of his game.
So why, 36 years later, are aides suddenly wary of a visiting American conservative? It could be an aversion unique to Palin, but it’s hard to imagine any of the Tea Party or religious right receiving a warm reception in the UK. The British groups that have embraced the Tea Party tend to be rather fringe. And the English Defence League is not a particularly welcome endorsement.
So what divides the British and American right? According to David Cameron, it is the perception of cultural difference. “How shall I put this?” he wondered aloud in an interview. “We seem to have drifted apart… there is an element of American conservatism that is headed in a very culture war direction, which is just different.” Cameron’s Tories redefined themselves as a caring, cosmopolitan party by embracing causes like gay rights or environmentalism. The current UK Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change left his wife for his male interior decorator. It’s hard to imagine a Republican administration showing that degree of tolerance.
Cameron was wrong to presume that all Tea Party people are social conservatives – many are “leave me alone” libertarians and gay marriage has received some surprising support among the GOP leadership. But the perception that the American right is culturally regressive is more powerful than the reality – and Palin is the figurehead for that conflation of economic and social conservatism. For instance, in the UK the deficit is usually discussed as an economic problem. Once the books have been balanced, Britain can get back to spending money on the things the government can do to help individuals – healthcare, education, social provision etc. In the US, the deficit is explicitly, or implicitly, understood to be a moral problem. Paul Ryan, the Republican fiscal supremo in the House, described balancing the budget as “a moral challenge involving questions of principle and purpose. The size of the budget is a symptom of deeper causes, and it points to different ideas about government.” In the American conservative mind, there is a link between debt and moral decadence. The welfare state, they say, encourages bad behaviour like laziness or having children out of wedlock. Deconstructing the state will encourage people to rely upon traditional sources of authority and charity that encourage self-discipline and Judeo-Christian morality. It is a Puritan ideal that reaches right back to the Founding Fathers. The Fathers were obsessed with the threat of debt, which they associated with slavery and reliance upon others. Dependency on easy money, alcohol or sex was symptomatic of moral decline – visible symptoms, in the Calvinist mind, of damnation. The British might titter at the thought of a prayer for the debt ceiling, but to many American conservatives the issue has a spiritual dimension as strong as – and related to – abortion or illegitimacy.
American conservatives exist to shrink government and restore moral order. British Tories exist to stay in power. That means that while American conservatives defend the radical, revolutionary, often deeply religious values of the Founding Fathers, British Toryism survives by adapting to the social orthodoxy of the day. At certain points in history, these tendencies have found common purpose. But today they are divided by vastly different responses to cultural change. The tragedy for their respective populations is that American conservatism lacks a moderating influence, while British conservatism lacks any sense of moral order. To many voters, who yearn for an intelligent synthesis of the two, both parties can seem a little “nuts”.
When Thatcher was Prime Minister, American and British conservatives were bosom buddies. British monetarists took their inspiration from Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economics, and both administrations watched each other’s fiscal experiments with interest. In foreign policy there were isolated differences – Reagan was a multilateralist, Thatcher was a fan of the nuclear deterrent. But they both believed Communism could be defeated and were united in their disregard for detent. Back then, The Lady kept an open door for visiting American conservatives. In 1975, she even met with Alabama Governor George Wallace (as did Labour PM Hard Wilson). Wallace was the man who declared “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” at his inauguration, the first salvo in a violent struggle to keep Alabama’s schools racially segregated. He was married to a former water-ski champion and had an unpleasant habit of constantly spitting into a handkerchief, regardless of the stature of the company he was in. For redneck nuttiness, Wallace was at the top of his game.
So why, 36 years later, are aides suddenly wary of a visiting American conservative? It could be an aversion unique to Palin, but it’s hard to imagine any of the Tea Party or religious right receiving a warm reception in the UK. The British groups that have embraced the Tea Party tend to be rather fringe. And the English Defence League is not a particularly welcome endorsement.
So what divides the British and American right? According to David Cameron, it is the perception of cultural difference. “How shall I put this?” he wondered aloud in an interview. “We seem to have drifted apart… there is an element of American conservatism that is headed in a very culture war direction, which is just different.” Cameron’s Tories redefined themselves as a caring, cosmopolitan party by embracing causes like gay rights or environmentalism. The current UK Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change left his wife for his male interior decorator. It’s hard to imagine a Republican administration showing that degree of tolerance.
Cameron was wrong to presume that all Tea Party people are social conservatives – many are “leave me alone” libertarians and gay marriage has received some surprising support among the GOP leadership. But the perception that the American right is culturally regressive is more powerful than the reality – and Palin is the figurehead for that conflation of economic and social conservatism. For instance, in the UK the deficit is usually discussed as an economic problem. Once the books have been balanced, Britain can get back to spending money on the things the government can do to help individuals – healthcare, education, social provision etc. In the US, the deficit is explicitly, or implicitly, understood to be a moral problem. Paul Ryan, the Republican fiscal supremo in the House, described balancing the budget as “a moral challenge involving questions of principle and purpose. The size of the budget is a symptom of deeper causes, and it points to different ideas about government.” In the American conservative mind, there is a link between debt and moral decadence. The welfare state, they say, encourages bad behaviour like laziness or having children out of wedlock. Deconstructing the state will encourage people to rely upon traditional sources of authority and charity that encourage self-discipline and Judeo-Christian morality. It is a Puritan ideal that reaches right back to the Founding Fathers. The Fathers were obsessed with the threat of debt, which they associated with slavery and reliance upon others. Dependency on easy money, alcohol or sex was symptomatic of moral decline – visible symptoms, in the Calvinist mind, of damnation. The British might titter at the thought of a prayer for the debt ceiling, but to many American conservatives the issue has a spiritual dimension as strong as – and related to – abortion or illegitimacy.
American conservatives exist to shrink government and restore moral order. British Tories exist to stay in power. That means that while American conservatives defend the radical, revolutionary, often deeply religious values of the Founding Fathers, British Toryism survives by adapting to the social orthodoxy of the day. At certain points in history, these tendencies have found common purpose. But today they are divided by vastly different responses to cultural change. The tragedy for their respective populations is that American conservatism lacks a moderating influence, while British conservatism lacks any sense of moral order. To many voters, who yearn for an intelligent synthesis of the two, both parties can seem a little “nuts”.
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