Pivoting off David Brooks, Reihan revisits the "Thatcherite thesis":
According to [Shirley] Letwin, an American-born British intellectual historian, Thatcherism was never a theory, of which there could be orthodox and less orthodox interpretations. Rather, it was a vision of a society that cultivated and rewarded certain qualities in citizens:
The individual preferred by Thatcherism is, to begin with a simple list: upright, self-sufficient, energetic, adventurous, independent-minded, loyal to friends, and robust against enemies.
… Note that Thatcherism is notably different from Reaganism. Though the left saw Reagan as a profoundly antagonistic figure, hostile to the welfare state, to cultural permissiveness, and much else that liberals hold dear, the Reagan of 1980 was, due in no small part to the supply-side credo, the champion of a "non-zero-sum" politics that aspired to a classless, frictionless politics of shared prosperity.
Read the supply-siders of the late 1970s and you'll find that they intend to use increased tax revenues generated by tax cuts to generously fund the welfare state. Reaganism reflected a basic confidence that the vigorous virtues were intact. Thatcherism, in contrast, rested on a more forthrightly antagonistic view of the world — there was a non-zero-sum conflict between individuals and families of all classes who celebrated and adhered to the vigorous virtues (a minority, quite possibly) and everyone else.
The Dish 