The American History Podcast presents 1983, the year the world almost ended episode 10, Ronald Reagan.

All right, welcome back. Last time, and I know it's been a while for this show, but last time we discussed the late 1970s and the idea that the United States was suffering from a decline.

But as I think we showed back then, if I can remember correctly, it was nothing of the sort.

Perhaps one could call it a reset.

Well, today we're going to talk about now the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Before we move on, let me announce my biases, which might come through, as you

probably know, is born in 1970, and considered myself up until the mid-1990s a Ronald Reagan Republican.

In 1996, I started my movement away from the GOP and towards the anarcho-capitalist beliefs that I now hold. But as a kid, especially in the 1980s, I loved Ronald Reagan. I just want to be up front with this, so no one can accuse me of hiding the ball, so to speak. All right, so let's get the show started. But before we do, we need to hop in on our time machine and travel back to 1980. This week our song on the week is another one

Bites the Dust by Queen. We'll see you in just a moment. Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th

president of the United States, whether one loves him or hates him, is, as is the case with many

successful politicians, an interesting study. On the one hand, who could be more

prepared to be president, the leader of the nation, than an actor? And part of the job, without a doubt,

is acting. And while Ronald Reagan was never an A-list actor, he was, nonetheless, capable of delivering

a line. However, on the other hand, he had no practical experience leading a company

or as a leader in the military during wartime. He was no Dwight Eisenhower. As a matter of fact,

his career, such as it was, had essentially ended by the mid-1940s when he was no longer able to get

decent roles. This was for many reasons, perhaps mostly due to changing tastes.

Now, before you feel sorry for him, let me just assure you, he was doing just fine economically.

This was the time of the studio system in Hollywood, and Reagan had a contract with Warner Brothers.

He was being paid $3,500 a week at that time, essentially to take a vacation. In today's

terms, that's about $3 million a year. I think I could suffer just like Reagan must have suffered,

to be honest. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's look at his childhood first.

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