Our Kayfabe President
The testosteronal pungence is real ...
What came first: the kayfabe or the relentless focus on arresting the young male gaze? Because the Trump campaign, in the run-up to the Presidency, frankly oozed testosterone. The term “kayfabe” of course refers to the code word professional wrestlers use for the fake storylines they portray to fans, largely young men, as real. Trump’s tour of duty in the WWE — a veteran of the “battle of the billionaires” with his compadre Vince McMahon — largely informed the carefully-cultivated geography of the 2024 campaign. “Clambering into the ring, Trump throws some of the most limp-wristed fake punches in the history of make-believe combat,” is how Gene Lyons of the National Memo judged Trump’s performance at WrestleMania. “It’s really quite funny.”
This last Presidential contest was far more dramatic. Not just the stakes, but all the unpredictable twists and turns that veered, ventured and careened into what can only be properly construed under the category of Surrealism. Even the unscripted moments — the assassination attempt, for example, or the late substitution of Harris for her “incapacitated” tag-team partner “Mean” Joe Biden — seemed only to enhance the Trump campaign narrative of his infinite toughness and the low-down, dirty underhanded ways of the Democrats.
In fine, Trump was the babyface and Kamala — like “Crooked Hillary” before her — was the heel. (Insert: Crowd Boos) The liminal space of the ‘24 campaign resembled naught else but “the Gorilla position,” named after the hallowed WWE pre-show area behind the curtain. In the Gorilla position, gladiators draw heat to the coming match by riling up the crowd, playing their emotions as one would a Stradivarius or, say, a Playel. It is no secret that Trump, who grew up in the outer borough of Queens, has been a wrestling fan for much of his life. The Sunnyside Garden Arena, which showed WWE shows from the ‘50s until the ‘70s, was right next door to Trump’s own Jamaica Estates.
Never forget that Trump’s reality show experience began in wrestling and his highly evolved ability to cut promos are in full, terrifying evidence when he gives speeches in places like the Grand River Event Center in Dubuque, Iowa, which also happens to host wrestling events. Further, Trump’s rallies, and particularly the Madison Square Garden one, are all couched in gladiatorial language. Trump is most in his element conjuring the rhetoric of the gladiatorial fundament — against journalists, for example, or against judges, of late. And what, pray tell, is more gladiatorial than surviving an assassination attempt in real time? It begs the ancient, evergreen question: ¿Quién es Más Macho? We won’t entertain the possibility that Madison Square Garden, the home stadium of both the WWE and the German Bund’s infamous “pro-American rally,” was mere coincidence. (Averted Gaze)
It didn’t hurt that Trump’s opponent was a woman, as it was also during his first foray into Presidential politics. In 2020, Joe Biden — a non-ivy, Amtrak riding, white dude — cut Trump’s lead with men of all races down to six points, according to Catalyst, all the while simultaneously keeping Hillary’s totals with women, who count for 54% of the electorate overall. That was Biden’s secret sauce to beating Trump and it was in that arena that the grudge e-match was taking place — the reality that Trump needed to regain the support of men because gains among women seemed, at the time, less than likely. As Eric Cortellessa of Time described the strategic process of Trump’s second run:
In the election’s final weeks, the former President and his political operation have sought to activate low-to-mid propensity male voters, particularly young ones, with surgical precision to sweep him back into power.
That’s meant eschewing traditional media interviews in favor of fawning long-form podcast conversations with laddish hosts who draw massive young male audiences, such as Theo Von, Lex Friedman, Logan Paul, the Nelk Boys, and Joe Rogan, who boasts the most popular podcast in America. Instead of trotting out endorsements from political heavy-hitters, they have touted support from professional athletes such as the retired Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre, former Pittsburgh Steelers Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell, and the boxer Jake Paul. At the Palm Beach headquarters, the campaign has built a data mine to target irregular GOP male voters and unregistered young men in swing states who they surmise can tip the scales in Trump’s favor.
And as pungently testosteronal as it all sounds, this strategy was actually data-driven. “But for the last two years, internal surveys and focus groups have found that a cohort of men under the age of 40 are the most moveable in his direction, especially those less politically engaged and who consume news and information from non-traditional sources,” Cortellessa concludes from talking to Trump campaign staffers. Young male Youtubers, to be sure, helped bring about his Presidency, rallying Trump’s “irregular” army. It all actually became more pronounced when Biden was replaced by a woman.
The “kayfabing” went into overdrive in the last days of the campaign and accelerated into post-maximalist mode immediately following his inauguration. Trade-wise, Trump, Season 1, was a series of tit-for-tat levies against China, concluding in a cage match in which, essentially, Huawei was banned from buying parts and components from US companies. The two sworn enemies signed the Phase One deal, tentatively ending the feud, which China didn’t fulfil once Biden beat Trump. Which sets us up for S2,E1 in which Trump unleashed a hurricane of tariffs on China and decided to go after the “intercontinental title” of the Western hemisphere! “(A f)eature of all of Trump's recent trade wars is that he uses hyperbolic threats (annexing Canada, 25% tariffs etc), then reaches an agreement whereby other country concedes little or nothing,” tweeted Jeet Heer. “Pattern has been seen in Canada, Mexico, Panama, Colombia. Declare war, do nothing, declare victory …” In other words: kayfabe tariffs.
Also: Kayfabe immigration. Trump’s crude rhetoric and performative theatricality on immigration resembles nothing if not a damned wrestling angle. Here’s Trump on Joe Rogan days before Election night:
TRUMP: You know what I don't understand? I don't understand why—Okay, you have a wall or you have a—You know, I built 570 miles a wall. Everyone said—I built a lot of wall, exactly the stuff. But you have a border. What I don't understand is who would want people to come into our country from places unknown. Like sometimes they'll say about a fighter, "From parts unknown," right?
ROGAN: Right.
TRUMP: Remember Haystacks Calhoun, he says, "From parts—
ROGAN: Yeah, the old days.
Just Joe Rogan and Trump reminiscing about the old days of wrestling. Probably the Sunnyside Arena. How bromantic! We cannot fail to note here that Trump never actually conceded defeat to Joe Biden in 2020. The lament that his national heavyweight title — the POTUS belt — was stolen from him is unceasing. A part of his grievance catalogue. It is also straight out of the playbook of basic wrestling programming. Every wrestling “booker” worth his weight in anabolic steroids from the days of the territories up to now knows that when a title changes hands as a result of “rule breaking,” it is incumbent upon the loser to continuously claim in promos far and wide that the title was “stolen,” to heighten the intensity (and draw a larger crowd) to the eventual re-match. ‘Rassling 101; Trumpology.
But back to the assignation attempt, for a moment, before closing out. There are a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination attempt on Trump. I am not going to engage those theories because, quite frankly, unless there is actual evidence that it was indeed staged, all of those theories are pure supposition. That having been said, the above image of Trump, bloodied but defiant, framed by the clear blue sky, secret service men and women and the American flag is an iconic image deeply infused with the wrestling psychology. “Back in the Fifties when Trump and I were lads, grapplers with bleached blonde pompadours were frequently seen on TV from Sunnyside Gardens in Queens with blood streaming down their faces from surreptitiously self-inflicted razor cuts.” continued Gene Lyons. “Everything about those first confusing moments as Trump was dragged to safety said ‘Sunnyside Gardens’ to me.” “Getting color,” or “blading” is regularly employed by wrestlers to dramatically and tonally enhance a storyline. Unfortunately, this image appears to have enhanced the paranoid style of American politics.
The WWE Hall of Fame is, to wrestling fans that are largely (but not entirely) male, a great honor. And I suspect the overlap of that cohort and irregular voters is not a small thing. Meaning: Trump already had a head start with irregulars. It is to that group that Trump has elevated the kayfabe narrative into the arena of high politics. To that end, his Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon (former WWE CEO and wife of villainous billionaire Vince), is expected today to sign a Directive to wind down the Department in which she serves. So, really, her position is to deconstruct her very own position, which is paradoxical. “Several Republican governors — including Greg Abbott of Texas, Mike Braun of Indiana, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Bill Lee of Tennessee, Brad Little of Idaho, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, Kim Reynolds of Iowa and Mike DeWine of Ohio — are expected to be in attendance, according to a White House official,” reports Juan Perez, Jr of Politico. There is no small irony here that the “winding down” of the Education Department and whatever that entails, coincides rather indecently with the ascent of kayfabe politics, which is ultimately merely a form of mass entertainment.
Vince McMahon in his finest hour as a showman couldn’t have scripted the damn thing better. Basta!
“Last spring, a Cameroonian-flagged cargo ship, the Barbaros, steamed through Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait. The Barbaros had begun its journey in Russia and was en route to a port in eastern Libya controlled by a warlord whose forces have been accused of crimes against humanity by a U.N. fact-finding mission. As the Barbaros crossed the Bosphorus in April, an eagle-eyed observer — Yörük Işık, who runs a consultancy analyzing maritime activity on the strait — got a view of its cargo. Isik posted photographs of the Barbaros on X, describing it as a “ship of interest” carrying trucks that are often used in military missions and that are manufactured by a sanctioned Russian company. A flurry of law enforcement activity followed, according to leaked documents from a European Union naval mission called Operation Irini. The mission attempts to track and block weapons shipments to Libya, which are banned under an international arms embargo. The documents show how commercial vessels — known as a ghost fleet — employed a range of tricks to avoid detection as they shipped Russian equipment to Libya. They also highlight growing European concerns about Russia’s influence in the country, which officials believed was part of a broader strategy by Moscow to project power in the Mediterranean and several African countries. After Isik posted the photographs, Interpol prepared a report on the Barbaros that found the vessel had manipulated its Automatic Identification System (AIS), the device that transmits information about a ship’s location, in an attempt to conceal its position. The report also found the ship had changed its name three times and had registered itself under the flag of a different country at least 10 times since 2013.” (David Kenner/ICIJ)
“First, an update on Canadian racist Geoff Martin, who we covered two weeks ago. Martin, who calls himself Captive Dreamer, includes Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk, and other high-profile Trumpies among his fans. But you will recall that Dreamer/Geoff’s day job was office drone at Canada’s largest Christian university, Western Trinity – an institution presided over by his own father. After Geoff was outed, his father Todd Martin renounced his spawn’s views, albeit without naming him. In a video posted online, the senior Martin said, in part: ‘I reject white supremacy and any ideology that elevates one group of people over another. I denounce the use of derogatory and disparaging labels and language and any attempts to dehumanize another individual or group. I strongly oppose the use of social media as a means of spreading such harmful ideas.’ (FWIW, your Freakshow author reached out to the university’s media office inquiring about whether Geoff Martin is still employed. Their reply: ‘As a matter of policy and in compliance with the Personal Information Protection Act, we cannot disclose personal information about current or past employees. However, we can confirm that no individual by that name is employed by the university.’) Dad’s renunciation didn’t sit well with Dreamer’s online fans. American racist influencer Mike Cernovich called Martin’s video ‘a degrading struggle session imposed on him.’ As if the president of a university (‘Christian,’ no less) that advertises its ‘inclusivity’ could maintain his position without denouncing the odious public views of his spawn.” (Nina Burleigh/American Freakshow)
The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (Martin Wolf)