They Don't Put Imbeciles on Dimes, Do They?

In 1968 J.G. Ballard (known to most as the author of Empire of the Sun. later filmed by Spielberg) published the short story Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan. It was a speculative piece that would have faded into obscurity had Reagan not went on twelve years later to become President of the United States.



"Slow motion film of Reagan's speeches produced a marked erotic effect in an audience of spastic children."



This is perhaps one of the most chilling pieces of prophesy produced in the second half of the twentieth century.



"Studies were conducted on the marked fascination exercised by the Presidental Contender's hairstyle. 65% of male subjects made positive connections between the hairstyle and their own pubic hair. A series of optimum hairstyles were constructed."



In fact, the most optimum hairstyle was modeled after the Big Boy restaurant chain's mascot. It was unfortunate that Ballard, an Englishman, was not able to make the connection between repressed homoerotic patriotism and the hamburger culture. Thus I do it here for him. If Plato's Socrates could find virtue in the Spartan's Guardianship class, man-boy love and all, America as self -declared inheritor of the Judeo-Christian tradition must bury its pederastic fantasies in the beef. Subconsciously, the country and it's Madison Avenue high-priests understood this and in early 1984, during the ramp up for Reagan's re-election campaign, Wendy's hamburger chain roled out it's "Where's the Beef?" campaign.

At the 1980 Republican Conventon in Detroit copies of Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan were printed up and imprinted with the seal of the RNC by some political pranksters. It was accepted at face value for what it purported to be - a paper on the candidate's subliminal appeal.
That no one at Cobo Hall would even blink twice nor blush at reading Ballard's fiction should come as no surprise as the subliminal appeal was already a resounding success. Ballard died in 2009, his lips sealed with a coal by an angel of the Lord like the old-timey prophets. Or at least l like to think so.