When real-world pressures give ideologues pause

The words carried added power by virtue of the speaker, and his manner: a famously cerebral former British cabinet minister, in a quiet, almost matter-of-fact tone.

“Reality bites,” Michael Gove remarked on Sunday, the opening day of his Conservative Party’s annual conference.

He was reflecting on the collision between an ideologically driven rightward swerve in the party’s economic policy and the panicked response of the financial markets – sending interest rates soaring and the value of Britain’s currency plummeting.

Yet the fundamental clash British Prime Minister Liz Truss is facing – between a rigidly ideological agenda and real-world pressure to rethink things – confronts other politicians across Europe, and in America as well.

We live in an age of fiercely ideological politics, with a nationalistic brand of populism on the rise.

But a constellation of crises – the war in Ukraine, inflation, the threat of recession, and the challenge of climate change – is forcing politicians of all stripes to figure out how to respond when “reality bites.”

In the short term, at least, there are signs this is prodding some to soften the hard edges of their ideological doctrines, to prioritize problem-solving, and even to engage with their critics or political foes.

It is uncertain whether that trend will have a lasting effect, or whether the angry divisions in a number of world democracies have become too firmly embedded to allow such a turnaround.

In Britain, however, the bite of reality does seem to be having an effect.

Barely 24 hours after Mr. Gove spoke, Prime Minister Truss’ plan to overhaul economic strategy by focusing on tax cuts began to wobble. The markets were dubious over how the cuts would be paid for, and with the benefits tilting toward the wealthiest, her growth plan was politically toxic.

On Monday, her finance minister announced she would not go ahead with an income tax cut for the richest.

Her retreat was the more remarkable because she had taken office only weeks earlier modeling herself on former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Britain’s first female prime minister was famous for refusing policy “U-turns” with the memorable remark at another Conservative Party conference: “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”

It’s still not clear whether Ms. Truss will make further U-turns. She is still arguing that the way to recharge Britain’s sluggish economy is to cut financial burdens on businesses and those who run them, while paying less attention to redistributing the nation’s wealth to the less well-off.

But the markets are likely to have a major say in what comes next.

Economic and geopolitical realities are already having a political effect in other European countries.

Within days of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz abandoned his country’s entrenched political orthodoxy by pledging billions of dollars in new defense spending. He has also ruled out activating a new pipeline to import Russian gas and, with other European states, moved to break his country’s long energy reliance on Moscow.

In a particularly dramatic sign of “reality” trumping ideology, his Green Party coalition partners have backed temporarily reopening coal mines to help avert a winter energy squeeze and reduce Mr. Putin’s scope for using gas as a tool of political pressure.

In Italy, although it’s too early to say with any certainty, the newly elected right-wing populist prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, seems aware that she’s facing reality pressures of her own.

Though deeply euroskeptic – and combatively nationalistic – she used her victory speech to emphasize her aim of “uniting this country.”

And perhaps in part because she knows Italy’s fragile economy needs its share of a huge post-pandemic European Union recovery package, she added that “the situation Italy and the EU are heading for is particularly complex and needs the contribution of all of us, requiring a serene atmosphere with reciprocal respect.”

This past week, there was even a sign that reality may be biting in highly partisan America.

It came in Florida, which has suffered terrible destruction to life and property from Hurricane Ian.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is one of the leading Donald Trump-style populists in the Republican Party. Bitterly opposed to President Joe Biden’s policies, he is seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2024.

As a congressman, he was a strident opponent of federal government support for New York state after Hurricane Sandy, a decade ago. He called such a bailout typical of a “put-it-on-the-credit-card mentality” that he was determined to fight.

Now, however, as the recovery from Ian was getting underway, he himself sought urgent federal financial help for his state.

“We live in a very politicized time,” he told a TV interviewer. “But you know, when people are fighting for their lives, when their whole livelihood is at stake, when they’ve just lost everything, if you can’t put politics aside for that, then you’re just not going to be able to.”

Whether he, or other Western politicians, are able or willing to keep doing so remains to be seen.

That may ultimately depend on one of the major “reality pressures” they are encountering – the basic needs, and the voices, of the voters.