On Sunday, June14, Trump threw an 80th birthday bash for himself (he says it was to honor of the 250th birthday of the United States) with a “Freedom250” Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match on the South Lawn of the White House.
It was a bloody gladiator fight taking place inside a 600-ton, 154-feet-tall skeletal structure called “the Claw,” painted red, white and blue. Opponents punched, kicked, wrestled, choked, and used jiu-jitsu on each other until one of them was unconscious or verbally conceded, or a referee stopped the fight because one was judged too damaged to absorb any more violence.
This was a money-making operation for the UFC (which offered special-access VIP packages for $1.5 million), for Trump buddy David Ellison’s Paramount (which livestreamed it to you if you bought a subscription for $8.99 a month — see here), for Crypto.com and Ram (which sponsored it), and for Trump (who decided which of his billionaire friends and CEO buddies would be invited ringside. The night before, Trump held a $1 million-a-person dinner at the Trump National Golf Club at Potomac, Virginia, to benefit his Super PAC, Maga Inc.).
Beyond the usual Trumpian issues of self-dealing and pay-to-play corruption, the fight also raises the question: What does a cage match on the White House lawn have to do with America’s 250th anniversary?
Just this: Trump and his regime are seeking to project an America that’s like the winner of a cage match.
Trump sees everything and everyone in terms of dominance or submission, and he’s hellbent on dominance. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong,” he told his supporters on January 6, 2021, before urging them to go the Capitol.
He views America as locked in a zero-sum match with the rest of the world, and there’s no limit to our violence. Unless Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz, he memorably said, “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
Trump’s entire “manosphere” is obsessed with force and violence. His secretary of “war,” Pete Hegseth, threatens “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” and “maximum violence to the enemy.” When told some fishermen survived the American bombing of their boat, Hegseth reportedly ordered his commander to “kill them all.”
Trump’s secretary of health and human services frequently posts shirtless workout videos in which he’s lifting weights alongside figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kid Rock. He claims Trump has “the highest testosterone level” ever seen in an individual over 70 years old.
Trump’s whole circle — including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and JD Vance — glorify male prowess and power. (In a Twitter exchange a few years ago, Musk said he was “up for a cage fight” with Zuckerberg, who replied: “Send me location,” eliciting from Musk: “Vegas Octagon,” and the suggestion that podcaster Joe Rogan referee.) Musk and Vance champion pronatalism — the belief that the single greatest threat to Western civilization is collapsing birth rates — and argue that Western women must have more children.
Much of the Republican Party is likewise focusing on male virility. Texas Republican senatorial candidate Ken Paxton calls the Democratic candidate “low-T Talarico.”
Part of this comes directly from the fascist playbook, organized around a “strongman” touting male dominance. In that playbook, war and violence are thought means of strengthening society by culling the weak and extolling heroic warriors.
I suspect many Americans find Trump’s neofascist “strongman” attractive because they feel powerless in a society that’s left them behind. The cage match and similar public displays of aggression enable them to feel vicariously powerful.
Young men in particular — who make up a disproportionate share of Trump’s base — have been economically emasculated. Most lack college degrees at a time when such a degree is necessary (although hardly sufficient) for a decent job, and when some 60 percent of university undergraduates and 67 percent of graduate students are female.
In this way, cage matches darkly echo “The Full Monty,” the 1997 British comedy about unemployed steelworkers in Sheffield, England, who form a male striptease act to make quick cash.
But the cage match at the White House lawn is no laughing matter. It’s deadly serious and deeply troubling.
When so many Americans are struggling to make ends meet, Trump’s gladiator fight suggests that the essence of the nation on its 250th birthday isn’t the democratic ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, nor is it the pull-yourself-up-from-the-
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views expressed here are those of the author.
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
