The World According to Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan’s global outlook in the early 1980’s.

This satirical pictorial map imagines the world from the perspective of Ronald Reagan. The image is rife with political humor from the early 1980s, reflecting perceived geographic ignorance in the Republican administration. The ongoing tension of the Cold War is noted a cowboy-attired Reagan facing off with Leonid Brezhnev, holstered rockets at the ready. ‘Our’ missiles are noted immediately adjacent to ‘their’ missiles’ and colorful commentary can be seen in the U.S.S.R. Other nations are also depicted in a tongue-in-cheek style, highlighting dissatisfaction with foreign policy across the board.

Domestic criticism is also apparent in the representation of the United States, divided into a huge California, a state for ‘Republicans and Other Real Americans’, and the Northeast, home to Democrats and Welfare Bums. A special distinction, Ecotopia, is noted in the Pacific Northwest.

The author, David Horsey, was a Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist for the Seattle Post Intelligencer and it’s likely he included the label as a point of pride. Horsey would update the map for a second issue in 1987, including portraits of Thatcher, Qaddafi, and Gorbachev (instead of Brezhnev).