Barry Goldwater: not some simple conservative hero (Getty)
When I last interviewed Liz Truss — in early 2022, when she was just Foreign Secretary — I spotted a copy of Rick Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge on her shelf. The book explores the links between the post-war administrations of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, the latter of whom is one of Truss’s great heroes. The reading material was, I thought, very Truss. The Invisible Bridge is the third in a four-part series chronicling the great conservative revolution in the United States, which seemed to come from nothing in the Sixties to sweep away everything barely two decades later. For Truss, Perlstein’s books were totemic, romantic dispatches from another age when true believers transformed the world around them. Here, in other words, was the Truss plan.
And then came her time in office, all 44 days of it, which saw her grand plans swept into the dustbin of history, along, it seemed, with her reputation. Yet now — with a 4,000-word essay in the Sunday Telegraph and an interview with Spectator TV yesterday — we discover she is mounting something of a comeback, or, at least, a defence of her legacy. Her premiership might not have survived, so the argument seems to go, but her ideas will live on. And she is not Nixon or Reagan, but Barry Goldwater, the Arizonian senator who lost to Lyndon B. Johnson in a landslide in 1964, only to spark an ideological transformation of American politics.
As it happens, the first in Rick Perlstein’s series of books tells this exact story. In Before the Storm, Perlstein describes what came before Nixon and Reagan. Up until 1964, the party political divide in the US was not as simple as it is today. Back then, both parties contained distinctly conservative and liberal wings: southern segregationists and northern liberals in the Democratic Party, for example; Waspish liberals and mid-western conservatives in the Republican. After 1964, the two parties began to divide into more obvious ideological camps, sparked in large part by Johnson’s Civil Rights Act, which outlawed racial segregation.
In 1964, it looked very much as though the future would be Democratic. Goldwater had been crushed. Johnson won more than 60% of the vote, the highest share in history, collecting 486 electoral college votes to Goldwater’s 52. Still licking its wounds, the conventional wisdom within the Republican Party was that it needed to avoid Goldwater’s brand of ideological conservatism if it were to stand any chance of winning again. By choosing someone like him, the Republicans might have won the South, but they had lost almost everywhere else. In a stroke, Johnson’s Democrats were the party of civil rights and moderation.
And yet, the conventional wisdom was wrong. Over the following years, Goldwater’s acolytes began to win governorship after governorship before eventually sweeping into the White House in 1980 under Reagan. So complete was the conservative victory that in 1992 Bill Clinton and the Democrats had to sue for peace, accepting much of the conservative agenda just to stand a chance of winning.
No wonder Liz Truss is reportedly comforting herself with the belief that she is the Goldwater of Britain, rather than just a humiliated former prime minister. If only it were that simple.
To begin with, the bridge from Goldwater to Reagan is quite a long one which, as Perlstein’s books show, starts with that distinctly problematic figure in American politics, Richard Nixon, before ending with Reagan. In other words, even if Truss were the Goldwater of Britain, if the American experience is anything to go by, it could be decades before the conditions are right for a Trussite agenda to triumph. And if it did, it would not be copy-and-paste Trussism, just as Reagan was not delayed Goldwaterism. Even Nixon, remember, was not a conservative Goldwater acolyte but very much his own man, who had already been vice president to the moderate Dwight Eisenhower for eight years before 1964. The idea of Truss being a second Goldwater is based less on the reality of the Nixon presidency that came next and more on the idea of the Reagan one that followed much later on.
Truss’s latest cosplay is made all the more peculiar given that Goldwater’s legacy is hardly blemish-free. Outside his own state of Arizona, Goldwater’s only endorsements had come from the segregationist south which supported his opposition to Johnson’s Civil Rights Act — a defining piece of legislation in favour of states’ rights. Prophets of our political future are rarely quite as all-seeing as they seem when re-examined. And Goldwater was no different: he is not some simple conservative hero, but a complicated figure whose policies were not even adopted wholesale by his ideological fellow-travellers who came next.
What, then, is it about her agenda that Truss believes will come to dominate the Conservative Party and British politics? Unfunded tax cuts which spark financial crises and a collapse in public support? I am being facetious, of course, but it is a reasonable question. Goldwater was an electoral failure but he didn’t cause a pensions and debt crisis after promising a sweep of giveaways without a fiat currency to depend on.
The strongest argument in favour of the Truss-as-Goldwater idea, is that she was right to challenge the sense of inevitability about Britain’s poor economic performance, anaemic growth and high taxes. Outside the EU, there is a reasonable argument to say that Britain needs to work harder to carve out a competitive edge — and that regulation and taxes will play a big role in this. Other than Johnson’s big-state “levelling up” Toryism, Truss’s Reaganite dash for growth is the obvious alternative, more in tune with the ordinary Conservative member than Johnsonism. It is far from impossible that Rishi Sunak leads the party to defeat and a form of Trussism emerges, once again, to claim the leadership.
Yet, even if this were true, the other moral of the Goldwater story is that it is not just ideas which matter, but the people to sell and deliver them in a way that works. The practical application of Trussism sparked a financial crisis which forced her from office. The art of politics is to win power and wield it effectively. Truss only managed the former. For the Conservative Party the more interesting question is not whether Truss is Goldwater, but where on earth they are going to find their Reagan.
Tom McTague is UnHerd’s Political Editor. He is the author of Betting The House: The Inside Story of the 2017 Election.
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SubscribeNobody ever said that Liz Truss was the Tory Barry Goldwater. Tom McTague saw a book in her office and stretched some very thin material into a whole article. The Tories already had their Barry Goldwater. And similar to Nixon and Reagan, Thatcher (and arguably Johnson) ditched most of Enoch Powell’s policies, but benefited from his political insight that it was possible to appeal over the heads of the Tory and Labour establishment directly to blue collar Labour voters on issues of concern to them, downplayed by polite society. But the emergence of another Thatcher from such a diminished political environment seems highly improbable.
I was about to post pretty much the same thing. This article is interesting but is also a massive straw man, assuming Truss thinks of herself as the new Goldwater when she has said no such thing, based on a book glimpsed on a shelf. And as you say, to the extent there’s a link to UK politics, it already happened and at about the same time.
The article also peddles the left-wing orthodoxy that the Truss / Kwarteng “unfunded tax cuts” in their “mini budget” were the sole cause of last year’s pensions and debt crisis, which immediately undercuts the credibility of the rest of the article.
I always find it strange that the media focuses on unfunded tax cuts, while ignoring the fact that we’ve had unfunded spending on a massive scale. I think we’ve borrowed circa 60 billion since she left office. At least she was looking for growth, that’s not the case with Sunak or Starmer. A lot of things that she was blamed for, were already happening before she came along.
In similar way, I wonder what exactly these tough ‘big spend’ averse bond market vigilantes were thinking when the Johnson Government spaffed 70m paying workers to peleton in their homes, ruinously broke the now 180bn NHS, and blew more zillions still on ppe and tests for two nightmarish years?? This does not excuse Truss. I just want to comprehend their acceptance of the Lockdown Money Tree madness and then sudden terror of State spending a year on!
In similar way, I wonder what exactly these tough ‘big spend’ averse bond market vigilantes were thinking when the Johnson Government spaffed 70m paying workers to peleton in their homes, ruinously broke the now 180bn NHS, and blew more zillions still on ppe and tests for two nightmarish years?? This does not excuse Truss. I just want to comprehend their acceptance of the Lockdown Money Tree madness and then sudden terror of State spending a year on!
The problem wasn’t just unfunded tax cuts. It was the exclusion of the OBR forecast, sacking of senior Treasury official, blaming of BoE, and basically a fingers in ears approach to any listening. When you give the impression you are Bonkers markets will react.
A fiscal stimulus might have worked, and might still, if tethered to some coherent industrial policy focusing on skills, education and the low productivity UK dynamic. None of that was present.
Whilst agreeing with your second paragraph, everything set out in the first paragraph was fundamentally correct; the OBR were wrong ( and adjusted their position soon after the lady’s resignation; the Treasury is a major force for wrongness starting from the top; and the Bank of England has gone utterly off the rails and Bailey should be removed ASAP.
But the way in which these moves were handled were naive and the lack of ground preparation mind boggling. Right policies, wrong actions
We’re almost in agreement there JRS.
I think though to press for tax cuts without a prepared industrial strategy and where your tax cuts are going focus investment incentives needed isn’t really a Policy. It’s a ‘hit and hope’.
To add context – we can see the US and EU now moving rapidly to invest/protect it’s ‘Green’ industries. We’re going to get badly squeezed here, yet with some major investment we have the science and technology to be at forefront. Brexit’s not made investing in the UK easier (at least for now|) but a clear supportive industrial policy could help attract that. I fear we’ll now be behind and not catch up. Fingers crossed wrong.
Truss’s growth plan listed a dozen or so key areas of reform, including but not limited to:
Investment Zones “to drive growth and unlock housing”
Reforms to improve access to affordable, flexible childcare
Reforms to ensure the immigration system supports growth
Pension reform
Financial services reform
Wider planning reform
Changes to accelerate delivery of infrastructure
Options to encourage people to stay in the labour market for longer
It is these packages of reform – far more so than any tax cuts – that had the real potential to unlock growth and boost productivity. And yet which of these has been so thoroughly implemented that it has been tested to destruction? None.
The media’s focus on taxes is ill placed. Not only due to the supply side reform agenda being the genuinely transformational element of the Truss growth plan, but also given the real upset that followed the mini budget. Looking back to that fiscal event, it was not the tax cuts that were the biggest or most important bit.
These are slogans not policy detail. 99% of Govts would say all these. The issue is absence of detail. Listing all the things you’d like to fix is not really a policy response when you are max’ing out the credit card.
We know if she was asked to explain in any detail what she would have planned to do in pretty much any of these she would have unravelled. As much because beneath the veneer there was just robotic repetition under any questioning. Markets noticed that also.
These are slogans not policy detail. 99% of Govts would say all these. The issue is absence of detail. Listing all the things you’d like to fix is not really a policy response when you are max’ing out the credit card.
We know if she was asked to explain in any detail what she would have planned to do in pretty much any of these she would have unravelled. As much because beneath the veneer there was just robotic repetition under any questioning. Markets noticed that also.
Truss’s growth plan listed a dozen or so key areas of reform, including but not limited to:
Investment Zones “to drive growth and unlock housing”
Reforms to improve access to affordable, flexible childcare
Reforms to ensure the immigration system supports growth
Pension reform
Financial services reform
Wider planning reform
Changes to accelerate delivery of infrastructure
Options to encourage people to stay in the labour market for longer
It is these packages of reform – far more so than any tax cuts – that had the real potential to unlock growth and boost productivity. And yet which of these has been so thoroughly implemented that it has been tested to destruction? None.
The media’s focus on taxes is ill placed. Not only due to the supply side reform agenda being the genuinely transformational element of the Truss growth plan, but also given the real upset that followed the mini budget. Looking back to that fiscal event, it was not the tax cuts that were the biggest or most important bit.
We’re almost in agreement there JRS.
I think though to press for tax cuts without a prepared industrial strategy and where your tax cuts are going focus investment incentives needed isn’t really a Policy. It’s a ‘hit and hope’.
To add context – we can see the US and EU now moving rapidly to invest/protect it’s ‘Green’ industries. We’re going to get badly squeezed here, yet with some major investment we have the science and technology to be at forefront. Brexit’s not made investing in the UK easier (at least for now|) but a clear supportive industrial policy could help attract that. I fear we’ll now be behind and not catch up. Fingers crossed wrong.
Whilst agreeing with your second paragraph, everything set out in the first paragraph was fundamentally correct; the OBR were wrong ( and adjusted their position soon after the lady’s resignation; the Treasury is a major force for wrongness starting from the top; and the Bank of England has gone utterly off the rails and Bailey should be removed ASAP.
But the way in which these moves were handled were naive and the lack of ground preparation mind boggling. Right policies, wrong actions
I always find it strange that the media focuses on unfunded tax cuts, while ignoring the fact that we’ve had unfunded spending on a massive scale. I think we’ve borrowed circa 60 billion since she left office. At least she was looking for growth, that’s not the case with Sunak or Starmer. A lot of things that she was blamed for, were already happening before she came along.
The problem wasn’t just unfunded tax cuts. It was the exclusion of the OBR forecast, sacking of senior Treasury official, blaming of BoE, and basically a fingers in ears approach to any listening. When you give the impression you are Bonkers markets will react.
A fiscal stimulus might have worked, and might still, if tethered to some coherent industrial policy focusing on skills, education and the low productivity UK dynamic. None of that was present.
I was about to post pretty much the same thing. This article is interesting but is also a massive straw man, assuming Truss thinks of herself as the new Goldwater when she has said no such thing, based on a book glimpsed on a shelf. And as you say, to the extent there’s a link to UK politics, it already happened and at about the same time.
The article also peddles the left-wing orthodoxy that the Truss / Kwarteng “unfunded tax cuts” in their “mini budget” were the sole cause of last year’s pensions and debt crisis, which immediately undercuts the credibility of the rest of the article.
Nobody ever said that Liz Truss was the Tory Barry Goldwater. Tom McTague saw a book in her office and stretched some very thin material into a whole article. The Tories already had their Barry Goldwater. And similar to Nixon and Reagan, Thatcher (and arguably Johnson) ditched most of Enoch Powell’s policies, but benefited from his political insight that it was possible to appeal over the heads of the Tory and Labour establishment directly to blue collar Labour voters on issues of concern to them, downplayed by polite society. But the emergence of another Thatcher from such a diminished political environment seems highly improbable.
You only have to be in office for a day and a night and you get an “ism” named after you. None of the British politicians that you name here appear to have any discernable political philosophy. They simply utter soundbites – and they don’t even compose those themselves.
You only have to be in office for a day and a night and you get an “ism” named after you. None of the British politicians that you name here appear to have any discernable political philosophy. They simply utter soundbites – and they don’t even compose those themselves.
Answering the question in the last sentence, Kemi Badenoch would be their next Reagan.
Indeed.
Johnson their Nixon, Sunak their Ford, with Starmer their Carter
Johnson their Nixon, Sunak their Ford, with Starmer their Carter
Indeed.
Answering the question in the last sentence, Kemi Badenoch would be their next Reagan.
Unfunded tax cuts? Like not raising corporation tax by six percentage points, and a proposed tax cut to supertax to take it back to Blair’s era, a cut that would increase revenue, as tax cuts do, while amounting to no more than a rounding error. Unlike the various extra money already thrown around by Sunak and Hunt since they got in.
Unfunded tax cuts? Like not raising corporation tax by six percentage points, and a proposed tax cut to supertax to take it back to Blair’s era, a cut that would increase revenue, as tax cuts do, while amounting to no more than a rounding error. Unlike the various extra money already thrown around by Sunak and Hunt since they got in.
This article misses the real issue with Liz Truss, she thinks she is an economic guru when in fact she is incredibly naive. A fiscal stimulus makes no sense when you have low unemployment, it can only lead to wage increases, and it makes even less sense when you have high inflation. Particularly if at the same time you are planning to raise interest rates to curb economic activity to bring down inflation. It does not address the constraint to growth, productivity.
There was one inadvertent benefit and that was putting a spot light on pension fund investments and the complete failure of the regulators to act to stop the financial industry from earning fees on the back of pension fund manager’s naivety. LDI’s in principle protect pension funds by generating income to match their liabilities. Any such benefit is total lost if they are then used as security to borrow money to make more interesting, ie more speculative, investments. The pension funds have bought fixed rate long term investments at low interest rates and borrowed at rates that can only go up. What is the point in that? They have matched one liability but created another, probably greater, one. The investments they make may cover that risk but they could have made those investments anyway without the pretence of covering their liabilities. I can see why the financial community have promoted them for fees but not why the pension fund managers are so gullible. It is up to the regulators to stop such foolishness.
This article misses the real issue with Liz Truss, she thinks she is an economic guru when in fact she is incredibly naive. A fiscal stimulus makes no sense when you have low unemployment, it can only lead to wage increases, and it makes even less sense when you have high inflation. Particularly if at the same time you are planning to raise interest rates to curb economic activity to bring down inflation. It does not address the constraint to growth, productivity.
There was one inadvertent benefit and that was putting a spot light on pension fund investments and the complete failure of the regulators to act to stop the financial industry from earning fees on the back of pension fund manager’s naivety. LDI’s in principle protect pension funds by generating income to match their liabilities. Any such benefit is total lost if they are then used as security to borrow money to make more interesting, ie more speculative, investments. The pension funds have bought fixed rate long term investments at low interest rates and borrowed at rates that can only go up. What is the point in that? They have matched one liability but created another, probably greater, one. The investments they make may cover that risk but they could have made those investments anyway without the pretence of covering their liabilities. I can see why the financial community have promoted them for fees but not why the pension fund managers are so gullible. It is up to the regulators to stop such foolishness.
It would be an admission of complete failure indeed, were Liz Truss and her supporters to claim that she’ll only be vindicated in 25 years time.
In truth it’s not going to take anywhere close to that long. Her plans were based upon an essential truth that the rest of the Establishment is either too stupid to understand or too scared to act upon and it’s the same truth that Ronald Reagan accepted when he said Government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem.
It would be an admission of complete failure indeed, were Liz Truss and her supporters to claim that she’ll only be vindicated in 25 years time.
In truth it’s not going to take anywhere close to that long. Her plans were based upon an essential truth that the rest of the Establishment is either too stupid to understand or too scared to act upon and it’s the same truth that Ronald Reagan accepted when he said Government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem.
it’s always worth watching Bloomberg TV to see which way the political wind is blowing.
As soon as Elon Musk – eventually – bought Twitter and pulled the seven veils away from its relationships with the Democrat party and the US security establishment all kinds of bad stories and digs against Musk and Tesla appeared, led by Bloomberg. His net worth was nearly halved and he fast dropped from No.1 to No.3 in the rich list.
Seeing what happened to Musk I think that Liz Truss may just have been the whale’s morning coffee.
it’s always worth watching Bloomberg TV to see which way the political wind is blowing.
As soon as Elon Musk – eventually – bought Twitter and pulled the seven veils away from its relationships with the Democrat party and the US security establishment all kinds of bad stories and digs against Musk and Tesla appeared, led by Bloomberg. His net worth was nearly halved and he fast dropped from No.1 to No.3 in the rich list.
Seeing what happened to Musk I think that Liz Truss may just have been the whale’s morning coffee.
There’s nothing wrong with being right, even if you are turfed from office by less knowledgeable or less principled opponents.
But she was nowhere near being right, was she?
Or are you buying this nonsense about her being brought down by the “leftwing economic establishment”?!?!? Have you ever heard anything so completely ridiculous?
But she was nowhere near being right, was she?
Or are you buying this nonsense about her being brought down by the “leftwing economic establishment”?!?!? Have you ever heard anything so completely ridiculous?
There’s nothing wrong with being right, even if you are turfed from office by less knowledgeable or less principled opponents.
I think this article was pretty unfair. I feel robbed of the brexit we were promised, robbed of the new vision for our economy, everyone has forgotten that free trade low tax model was a major promise of brexit or doesn’t understand her economics. Truss was outward looking, trade with everyone, attract businesses and tourists, it was a good idea I think, I read her essay in the telegraph and thought it was very good, I think she was treated very unfairly, good for her, you keep telling them truss. Kwasi didn’t deserve to loose his job either. I think it was an enormous mistake for both of them to go and it sounds like not entirely their fault. Once again stopped by this ‘left leaning establishment’ type thinking. What has happened to London? What are you all doing down there? London seems to have forgotten we are democracy, offing prime ministers left and right and forgotten how people make money and run a business!
I remember a couple of arguments I had with people on Facebook at the time last October (yes, I know doing this is a complete waste of time, but it is sometimes enjoyable) and I was surprised at the evidence that free trade / low tax possesses almost no supporters any more. The level of ignorance involved in those who oppose it is enormous of course, but knowing that doesn’t help when it comes to the issue of electing governments which support free trade.
I also had a very similar argument with someone on here when kwasi got sacked, in fact most people completely missed the point with her budget, I’ve just gone to great lengths to explain to an American poster on a different thread why it was a good idea, like you say, posting isn’t perhaps going to make a massive difference but can feel like I tried, kept me out of trouble for a while 🙂 you are right there seems to be a very poor understanding of the whole concept, its like a strangely forgotten and misunderstood part of the brexit deal really, I thought it was a good reason to vote out. I think it could have been a good thing and it’s a shame more don’t understand it, I haven’t heard any better ideas either.
I also had a very similar argument with someone on here when kwasi got sacked, in fact most people completely missed the point with her budget, I’ve just gone to great lengths to explain to an American poster on a different thread why it was a good idea, like you say, posting isn’t perhaps going to make a massive difference but can feel like I tried, kept me out of trouble for a while 🙂 you are right there seems to be a very poor understanding of the whole concept, its like a strangely forgotten and misunderstood part of the brexit deal really, I thought it was a good reason to vote out. I think it could have been a good thing and it’s a shame more don’t understand it, I haven’t heard any better ideas either.
I remember a couple of arguments I had with people on Facebook at the time last October (yes, I know doing this is a complete waste of time, but it is sometimes enjoyable) and I was surprised at the evidence that free trade / low tax possesses almost no supporters any more. The level of ignorance involved in those who oppose it is enormous of course, but knowing that doesn’t help when it comes to the issue of electing governments which support free trade.
I think this article was pretty unfair. I feel robbed of the brexit we were promised, robbed of the new vision for our economy, everyone has forgotten that free trade low tax model was a major promise of brexit or doesn’t understand her economics. Truss was outward looking, trade with everyone, attract businesses and tourists, it was a good idea I think, I read her essay in the telegraph and thought it was very good, I think she was treated very unfairly, good for her, you keep telling them truss. Kwasi didn’t deserve to loose his job either. I think it was an enormous mistake for both of them to go and it sounds like not entirely their fault. Once again stopped by this ‘left leaning establishment’ type thinking. What has happened to London? What are you all doing down there? London seems to have forgotten we are democracy, offing prime ministers left and right and forgotten how people make money and run a business!
Truss and Goldwater certainly have one commonality: “In your guts, you know they’re nuts!”
Neither is, or were, “nuts”. But they had enormous clumsiness in common
Neither is, or were, “nuts”. But they had enormous clumsiness in common
Truss and Goldwater certainly have one commonality: “In your guts, you know they’re nuts!”
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