After 100 Days Where Are We?

by Paul Craig Roberts

 

About a month or so ago on March 23 I posted on this website my memoir of my time in the Reagan administration which had just been published in The Independent Review, a readable quarterly. I expected to hear more than I did in response to my memoir, because I spelled out how difficult it is for a presidential appointee to actually support the policy of the President.  

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/03/23/my-time-in-the-reagan-administration/ 

Then it occurred to me that the Reagan administration was a long time ago, 1981-1988. President Reagan’s term ended 37 years ago.  So an American 50 years old today was 13 years old when Reagan’s second term ended. He was 5 years old when Reagan was elected president. A 50 year old American never experienced the Reagan administration. A 60 year old American was only 15 when Reagan took office. The vast majority of Americans alive today know nothing of the Reagan administration except the accounts of the presstitute media and historians grinding ideological axes. Yet, somehow, Americans say they miss Reagan, the last American president.  

With Trump’s first 100 days behind us,  MAGA Americans are touting his successes and the Democrats are multiplying his “failures.”  

Let me tell you about a real successful president – Ronald Reagan – Perhaps the only successful president in the 20th century. Reagan had two major successes. I know because I was part of them. Reagan cured stagflation – the simultaneous rise of inflation and unemployment – with his supply-side policy, and he ended the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Tell me, what American president has had such extraordinary successes?

(Read more)