President Donald Trump's inaugural address was a "direct threat to the value system of the left" and a "head-on challenge to power and ideology," modeling him more after former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher than President Ronald Reagan, according to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
"Trump resembles Thatcher far more than Reagan," Gingrich wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post on Thursday.
"Reagan was focused on breaking the power of the Soviet Union, not breaking the power of political correctness and the elite media that has increasingly dominated the United States. They were frightened of Reagan, but they weren't enraged by him.
"Trump is a direct, mortal threat to both the power structure and the ideology of the left. The left knows it and is responding just as the British left wing responded to Thatcher.
"The young liberal fascists breaking windows and intimidating Trump supporters on Inauguration Day displayed the kind of hostility that Thatcher evoked on the left."
Gingrich went on to contrast the Democrats' opposition in Congress, holding up President Trump's Cabinet confirmations, to House Speaker Tip O'Neil's "more nuanced approach" to Reagan in the '80s.
"The congressional Democrats' decision to adopt pure negativity and opposition tactics is much more like the Labour Party's reaction to Thatcher than then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill's much more nuanced approach to Reagan," Gingrich continued. "One-third of the House Democrats voted for the Reagan economic program in the summer of 1981. It is hard to imagine that happening in the House today."
Gingrich's opinion piece came before news broke that President Trump's first meeting with a foreign leader will be with British P.M. Theresa May.
"This week's visit may revitalize the special relationship that the United States and Britain have had ever since 1941," Gingrich concluded. "Prime Minister Thatcher would have approved."
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