Thread by @bopinion

Since 1979, the left has only managed to install 4 people in the White House or Downing Street:

🇺🇸Bill Clinton
🇺🇸Barack Obama
🇬🇧Tony Blair
🇬🇧Gordon Brown

The right has established two advantages: competence & intellectual dynamism trib.al/mALxUdZ

The first is a traditional advantage of conservatism.

Both Republicans and the Tories have based their electoral appeal on the idea that they will do a better job of looking after your money and protecting your country than the other guys trib.al/mALxUdZ

However, the right has also been more dynamic.

Since 1979, modern conservatism has produced many important ideas that have changed the political universe, from privatization to welfare reform to “broken windows” crime policy trib.al/mALxUdZ

Of course, there were ups and downs in this era of conservative dominance — George W. Bush’s Iraq war — but the right has generally managed to stay on the “good government” side of things.

That is, until recently trib.al/mALxUdZ

In 2020, the West is being menaced by a deadly virus. Voters are craving security and competence. You might imagine that conservatives would have redoubled their advantage.

Yet the conservative sun is fading trib.al/mALxUdZ

In the U.S., the polls indicate that Donald Trump is likely to lose the presidency to 78-year old Joe Biden, while the Senate may change hands as well.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s popularity has plummeted trib.al/mALxUdZ

Driving all this is Covid — and the right’s inability to handle it.

In both Britain and America, the supposedly competent side of the political spectrum has failed in its basic task of protecting its citizens from the virus trib.al/mALxUdZ

🇺🇸In the U.S., the number of deaths per million inhabitants is close to 650; 🇬🇧in Britain it is 655. By comparison:

🇨🇦Canada: around 250
🇩🇪Germany: 120
🇦🇺Australia, 🇳🇿New Zealand, 🇸🇬Singapore, 🇰🇷South Korea, 🇹🇼Taiwan: below 50 trib.al/mALxUdZ

On Oct. 1, more new cases were announced in the Trump White House than in these countries combined:

🇹🇼Taiwan
🇻🇳Vietnam
🇳🇿New Zealand

The economies of the best performers are all recovering strongly too trib.al/mALxUdZ

If Dwight Eisenhower or Winston Churchill were alive, this would come as a shock.

Despite the peril to the nation, Trump and Johnson have surrounded themselves with mediocrities, chosen for their loyalty rather than their competence trib.al/mALxUdZ

In every great crisis since the Second World War, the U.S. has taken the lead, usually followed by Britain.

This time around, the duo went the opposite direction, with Trump withdrawing from the WHO and Britain embroiled in a prolonged fight with the EU trib.al/mALxUdZ

Worst of all, the right has been badly bested by the country that it regards as its main geopolitical competitor.

Beijing has done a far better job than Britain or America of keeping its people safe at home and projecting its soft power abroad trib.al/mALxUdZ

Over the past 40 years, conservatives have embraced two philosophies of government.

The first: The U.S. government had become too big, too sprawling and too intrusive trib.al/mALxUdZ

Hostility has frozen into dogma:

✂️Tax cuts should be championed, regardless of the deficit
💸Public sector pay should be squeezed, regardless of talent
⛔️Shutdowns should be treated as a badge of honor trib.al/mALxUdZ

The second of these philosophies has come to the fore under Trump.

At the heart of “Make America Great Again” there is a Hamiltonian view of the state. The “energy in the executive” is to be celebrated so long as it is used to advance America’s power trib.al/mALxUdZ

Both of these philosophies have floundered in the Covid crisis.

Will a new conservatism emerge? Perhaps, but only once it comes to terms with equality and fairness, as well as the need to reform and revitalize government trib.al/mALxUdZ