Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan

"Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan" (1968), by J. G. Ballard, is a short story written in the style of a scientific report on a series of experiments intended to measure the psychosexual appeal of the Californian politician Ronald Reagan, who then was governor of the state of California, and also a candidate for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination, which he lost to Richard Nixon.

Ballard said that he was impressed and inspired by the phenomenon of media politicians who speak for private interests, whilst pretending to speak for the public interest, because: In his commercials Reagan used the smooth, teleprompter-perfect tones of the TV auto-salesman to project a political message that was absolutely the reverse of bland and reassuring.

Above all, it struck me that Reagan was the first politician to exploit the fact that his TV audience would not be listening too closely, if at all, to what he was saying, and indeed might well assume, from his manner and presentation, that he was saying the exact opposite of the words actually emerging from his mouth.

[2]A bookseller who sold the pamphlet-edition of the short story “Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan” was charged with the crime of public obscenity.

Ballard said that the political delegates readily accepted the short-story fiction for what it resembled: a scientific report about the psychological dynamics of the subliminal appeal of the media politician Ronald Reagan who was proffering himself as a Republican candidate for the national presidency.