Protest against Margaret Thatcher inspired some of the greatest art in British pop culture history
Channel rage. Be brave.
Well, that was, as they say, a turn-up for the books.
As we made clear in our endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, the result of the US presidential election is not what either Ross or I had hoped for or expected. But here we are. Donald Trump will be President. Again.
Those of us on the losing side need time to process what has happened with this election. Because it’s profound. A clear and significant majority of the United States electorate voted for President-Elect Trump as their preferred candidate. It wasn’t even close. Donald Trump is the first Republican to win the popular vote in decades and saw gains in support across all demographics — this data-driven piece from the Financial Times is a great explainer of who voted and where and makes a refreshing change from the many angst-ridden, hand-wringing opinion essays out there.
According to another data point, 83% of voters polled said they had made up their minds about who they would vote for by early September. That means most of the campaigning, the rallies, the Zoom calls, the TikToks, the podcast appearances (or not) during the last two months of the campaign barely moved the needle. Billions of dollars were spent and, at least based on that statistic, were ignored by most registered voters. We could have saved ourselves a fortune, and it would have made fuck all difference.
We have said before that we’re not here to write about politics on MBH4H; we're here to cover human creativity in the era of AI. But trying to get to grips with the election of Donald Trump has reminded me that so much of creative work is political, and some of the best of it is inspired by political protest.
As someone who experienced the turmoil of Margaret Thatcher's years as Prime Minister in the UK in the late 1970s and 1980s, I see Trump’s election victory as remarkably similar to her party’s landslide defeat of Michael Foot and the Labour Party in 1983—which began Thatcher’s second term in office. I vividly remember this time: I was 20, living in Bristol, and about to drop out of art school to become a professional illustrator.
Thatcher was venerated in the United States. She became a close friend of Ronald Regan—a kindred spirit when it came to landslide victories—and rekindled the UK's “special relationship” with the US. But Thatcher was a polarizing figure at home in the UK; both revered and loathed. Her premiership was defined by the civil unrest in 1981, her brutal response to the miner’s strike from 1984-85 and the Poll Tax Riots of 1990, and her jingoistic handling of the Falklands War. She earned her the moniker The Iron Lady and ran for her second term in 1983 on the platform of government and union reform, low taxes, and strengthening Britain’s role on the world stage—sound familiar?
Thatcher's premiership ran from 1979 to 1990. Though she famously had little interest, taste, or appreciation of art, music, or literature, those years are arguably one of British pop culture's most creatively fertile periods. Some of the best music, art, film, TV, and design of the latter part of the 20th century were produced during Thatcher’s time in office, and much of it was a direct criticism and reaction to her and her policies:
Music like “A Town Called Malice” by The Jam (Paul Weller would later perform on “Top of the Pops TV show wearing a “Coal Not Dole” badge in support of the striking miners) “Maggie’s Farm” and “Ghost Town” by The Specials, “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang” by Heaven 17, and “Shipbuilding” by Elvis Costello were all written in direct response to Thatcher’s leadership; bands like The Fall and The Smiths wrote numerous tracks inspired by the tumult of the time. Films like My Beautiful Launderette, Brassed Off, and The Full Monty and TV shows like “Boys from the Blackstuff,” “The Young Ones,” and “Spitting Image” all addressed—directly or indirectly—the social, political, and economic challenges of the 1980s and 1990s.
The Thatcher years had a very distinct, post-punk British look and feel. Artists Damien Hurst and duo Gilbert & George, graphic designers like Neville Brody (known for his distinctive work for The Face magazine) and Peter Saville (who designed covers for albums for Joy Division and New Order), and fashion designers Vivienne Westwood and Katherine Hamnett (Choose Life t-shirts) all created work that defined the era and is still influential to this day.
Over 70 million people in the US voted for Donald Trump, knowing exactly who he is and what he is capable of. His character and proclivities are a feature, not a bug.
But belief in democracy means accepting the results even when they don't go your way. Regardless of whether you voted for him or not, Donald Trump has been duly elected as the 47th President of the United States. After a day of mourning, I’m now inspired to channel my personal disappointment and disillusionment into something creative.
Oh, I guess I just did.