The Enduring Influence of "The Iron Lady"

(The Trailer for "The Iron Lady," which opens this Friday nationwide)

From the moment I saw the above trailer for the new Margaret Thatcher biopic "The Iron Lady," I was immediately anxious to see it as soon as it hit theaters- not only because Lady Thatcher is portrayed by Meryl Streep, a true master at her craft and someone I've adored in every film I've ever seen of hers, but also because the former Prime Minister is an utterly fascinating and magnetic historical figure, regardless of what one might think of her politics. Being a convinced leftist in a 21st Century political culture still characterized by a debate over the consequences and legacy of the policies instituted by Thatcher and her ideological counterpart Ronald Reagan here in the States, it might seem odd that I am so entranced and fascinated by the Iron Lady. As her biographer Charles Moore told Jill Lawless of the AP though, "You have to be over 40 to hate Mrs. Thatcher. Young people just want to know about her."

Reagan and Thatcher- Photo courtesy of the Daily Mail

I find myself in a similar predicament oftentimes with regards to President Reagan. If my interest in and study of the politics of my lifetime have made me sure of anything, it's that Reagan's policies have been pushed much too far by his current-day disciples and have had quite a pernicious influence on the economy and, more fundamentally, the mindset of my native United States. However, it's hard not to wonder sometimes whether or not said policies, while having outlasted their welcome in 2011, were not exactly what the country needed in 1981 when Reagan took office. Given that I was born in November 1991, nearly three years after Reagan left office and only a month before the Soviet Union finally dissolved, I can't fully appreciate the dichotomy between pre-Reagan America and post-Reagan America, any more than as a student of history. Even in that context though, it would be hard for anyone to say that he didn't leave his country in better shape in 1989 than he found it in 1981. An economy wracked by inflation and unemployment in 1981 was vibrant and expanding in 1989, while a United States scared and embarrassed by the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1981, stood as the confident, preeminent power of the world in 1989. Of course, a lot of luck on Reagan's part was involved in his successes- the former transformation took place in the context of compromises made between Reagan and Tip O'Neill's Democratic Congress, while the latter one could never have occurred if not for Reagan's presidency of the United States occurring at the same time as Mikhail Gorbachev's premiership of the Soviet Union, but history shows that great leaders have a way of falling into good luck.

Don't get me wrong, Reagan had some faults and some big ones- he helped to create a culture of carnivorous greed and empty materialism, in which it's considered acceptable today for his followers to shout things like "Let him die!" when a candidate from his party is asked a question about what the government should do about an uninsured man with a terminal disease. Moreover, his legacy will forever be tainted by the cardinal sin he made of legitimizing and empowering the Religious Right in this country as a powerful force in the Republican Party and, by extension, American politics. To what extent Reagan did this in order to pander for votes, or because he genuinely believed that religious fundamentalism and government policy should be mixed together is uncertain, although, as Christopher Hitchens pointed out in a rather harsh critique of Reagan for Slate, our 40th President "used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the "End Times" foreshadowed in the Bible."

On this front, history will remember Lady Thatcher much more kindly than her American counterpart. In an interview with Movie Fone, Meryl Streep notes that the Iron Lady would likely be ostracized by the American conservative movement today for her surprisingly moderate views on social issues and healthcare:

"I was very surprised to learn that she didn't try to dismantle the National Health [Service], she thought that it was right to have the National Health [Service]... she was Pro-Choice, I went to Washington recently and spoke to somebody who was in the room when she took Dan Quayle and President [George H.W.] Bush down for using [abortion] as a political football... She had people in her cabinet serving very high, close to her in her staff, who had big homosexual scandals, and she would say, 'You stand right next to me, all day, that's how we'll handle this.' She didn't care about that stuff... She would be drummed out of the American conservative party, there would be no question."

At any rate, Thatcher and Reagan are both likely to continue to be controversial figures for some time to come. But while the extent to which, if any, either or both would approve of the mischief caused by modern-day conservatives is in doubt, their lasting influence and impact on the Western world in the late-20th Century into the present, is beyond question.