re: #161 HappyWarrior

The problem with Churchill and Thatcher at least in how Americans view them is only through the American prism. They just see Winston as the chubby guy with one liners who worked with FDR to defeat the Nazis. They don’t see the unrepentant imperialist who was definitely bigoted and whose imperialist instincts led to trouble in Ireland, India, & others. Thatcher likewise is seen as Reagan’s BFF in fighting the USSR and her staunch support for right wing tyrants like Pinochet and retrograde policies like poll taxes is forgotten which was of course why many Brits weren’t exactly mourning her. I get what she did for women leaders but I’m not an admirer. Both are better than the UKIP and Boris Johnson/Teresa May but both are overhyped for the reasons stated.

Really, I’d argue that the reason why PMs like Winston, Maggie, and Tony are well-regarded by Americans is because they are seen as the most “friendly” to our interests than others before and after. While Churchill’s biggest claim to fame back home is being the guy who pushed on with war when everybody around him wanted to surrender (a total myth), his fame in America largely came because he was the man who oversaw the creation of the Anglo-American partnership we take for granted today. Today we act as though that partnership was practically written in stone, but there was a period in WWI when the US and UK were so at odds that a US invasion of Canada was in the cards.