Truss, who lost longevity battle to a lettuce, is on comeback trail through Washington, DC?
Hats off to Politico, which has a killer piece from Washington, D.C. about Liz Truss’s trip to America’s capital last month. It seems that the woman who lost the longevity battle to a lettuce (and practically crashed the pound, meanwhile) believes the comeback trail lies through the Beltway.
Perhaps Ms Truss has forgotten the scorn her disastrous premiership drew from the Biden administration. Perhaps she was happy to be (kinda) cheered on her way by Republicans, some of whom want Trussonomics-style uber neo-liberalism. It’s really a sort of arson attack on government takings and its logic is as follows: by making it difficult to collect revenue for the functions of government, government ceases to function.
Politico’s Alexander Burns spoke to Republicans who met Britain’s shortest serving prime minister. In Mr Burns’ words, Ms Truss seemed to still be “determined to rouse Britain from economic stagnation — and intimated that she did not trust her successor, Rishi Sunak, a more technocratic Tory, to do the job.”
As tone deaf as ever, she seems to have quaffed some of the pitying words (and near-insults directed at Britain in DC) as if they were the very finest mead. For instance, Representative Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, who chairs the influential Republican Study Committee. Ms Truss had a long chat with Mr Hern, perhaps because both of them fervently believe their respective countries are on the wrong track. The Congressman said Ms Truss was “prime minister of what once was a great nation” and that she had tried to “save Great Britain” before she was foiled by trying to do “too much, too soon.” Geez. For an encomium that’s pretty snarky.
Along with a lack of self-awareness, Ms Truss appears to be an American groupie through and through. Never mind that the US political system is increasingly considered flawed and badly in need of a fix, Ms Truss remains a true believer. Apparently, a congressional aide heard her say Britain’s Conservatives could “disappear entirely” as a political force because voters in the UK had the bad habit of cancelling parties in a way that doesn’t happen in the US.
Many would say there are members of America’s Republican Party who entirely deserve to be politically run out of town, but then no one ever suggested good judgement was a strong point for Liz Truss.
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