Ronald Reagan

In response to an op-ed piece by Paul Krugman, Megan McArdle challenges one of the current left wing views that Ronald Reagan's presidency is responsible for much of the problems of today. Of course, many on the right now glorify Reagan as the greatest conservative and classify the Bushes in less than flattering terms. I question this whole focus on Reagan as very short-term historical thinking. So short-term that it overlooks what happened in the late 60's and 70's, when we had the craziness of drafting young people to fight a stupid war, riots in black areas of cities and a long period of malaise typified by gas lines and stagflation and high interest rates. Not to mention disco, clearly the end of civilization as we know it. Volker conquered stagflation by inducing a recession, the Soviet Union collapsed and people's lives in the 80's were generally much better (as people's lives have generally improved over time). Of course, the new left narrative now discounts this as phoney gains to be paid for by the difficulties we have now. I am dubious of both these narratives that place the major causal factors of current conditions in the 1980's.