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The Baffler: J.G. Ballard's brilliant


In J.G. Ballard's brilliant story Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan, he mimics the language of a psychological case study to sink into the sexual undertones of mass-media politics: "Faces were seen as either circumcised (JFK, Khrushchev) or uncircumcised (LBJ, Adenauer).

In assembly-kit tests Reagan's face was uniformly perceived as a penile erection." It's hard to place Trump anywhere on this scale. We're used to thinking of the man as an unrestrained male id, a vulgar explosion of infantile sexuality and adult braggadocio, a big, bleating, phallic presence--but he's nothing of the sort. Watch him moan, see how he constantly kvetches, see that horrendous wet flap of a mouth pronounce its indignity. A queasy, quivering pile of folded flesh; walking gynaecomastia, hermaphrodite rage.

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