Trump, Professional Wrestling, and Fake News

We have watched a spectacle: the 2016 Presidential Campaign

The political establishment, the pundits, and the media did not quite comprehend that the political environment had changed.  Anger and spectacle were not merely normalized, they drew audiences.  The outrageous got watched, it got clicked on, and it got passed around and around.   Donald Trump understood something Hillary most certainly did not: the new metaphor for politics was not Lincoln-Douglas.   It was professional wrestling.

Professional Wrestling is Theater

Donald Trump is a member of the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.  At one point he owned a competitor to WWE (formerly World Wrestling Entertainment) but he sold it to WWE after he flamboyantly counter programmed it to WWE and offered to refund the price of every paid ticket to WWE.   

Professional wrestling is not a "sport" in which the Portland Trail Blazers have a legitimate contest against the Golden State Warriors.  It is a spectacle, more like circus acrobats or a magic show.  The audience knows that the woman will not actually disappear into thin air.   Professional wrestling is scripted, with soap-opera like story lines.   In a spectacle the outrageous is not a flaw, it is a feature.  The magician does not merely offer to draw a line with chalk down the belly of his assistant.  He says he will saw her in half.  He does not swallow a straw; he swallows a sword.  The clown is shot from a cannon, with a loud boom and smoke.   In the context of "serious politics" the outrageous disqualifies.   But in the context of spectacle the outrageous is essential.

Donald Trump understood spectacle, he used it, he thrived because of it.

People study professional wrestling.   Here is an excellent, readable summary:   Click Here

 Advertisers like its audience  (Blue Collar, Male, Less Educated) and Ph.D. dissertations get written about the narratives (Complicated and Serious).   The content has moved from "fake" ("kayfabe" in the trade) to admittedly scripted, to its current form in which not only is it admittedly scripted but audiences are involved as critics and participants in the scripting.  Fans are understood to be part of the writing process so it is a participatory spectacle, with the audience helping to shape the outcome.

Professional wrestling has become participatory democracy.  Trump adopted the role of Savior Hero.  He positioned Hillary as the Corrupt Weakling.   His act had appeal.  He got the crowd involved.   He let them help him write the script: "Hillary for Prison!" 

Trump at a WWE match, in victory

Hillary Clinton was not doing professional wrestling.   She was doing standard politics.   When she gave policy oriented speeches she confirmed the Trump cartoon caricature of her--the plodding weak evil politician.  They were talking past each other in the big drama.  Hillary was normal politics and Trump was doing a performance of broad working class appeal.   The teleprompter-Trump of the last three weeks of the campaign reassured Republican voters that they could safely vote the Republican brand, and they did.  

Trump was inconsistent in his policy but he was unconventional and outrageous,  which made him authentic as a spectacle hero--and therefore interesting and a magnet for ratings, which television news rewarded by blanket coverage.   In the context of professional wrestling the various fake news stories that got circulated fit in perfectly.   Outrage was normalized    Click here to see how Hillary murdered 43 people and has gotten away with it every single time!  Click Here to read the secret love child Bill and Hillary keep in a metal cage in Little Rock!  

Trump understood spectacle.  I witnessed first hand his grand entrance into the rally at Boca Raton, with booming music and a helicopter fly over.  He was a star, a hero, larger than life.  

Professional wrestling is "low culture" and many readers may reject the association of the brutality of violence and suffering with politics.   It seems so cheap.  So vulgar.  So low-class.   It would be another iteration of the coastal snob reaction to "flyover" country so resented by people who view themselves as the heartland.  Besides, high culture includes sword fights and murder in operas and Shakespeare plays.    High culture involves spectacle, too.    And so-called middle-brow culture does as well:  college and NFL football, auto racing, action films.

Hillary Clinton carried the educated, prosperous Manhattan high culture vote, and she campaigned in a manner they respected--or at least expected.  She played by the rules of politics: problems, policies, process.   Trump played politics as a reality TV star, doing low-brow politics.   The establishment fuss-budgets of the GOP scorned him for it, which largely helped Trump because it defined him as an outsider and a reformer.  Romney's scorn was not scripted, but it was part of the performance.

By election day Trump had consolidated the Republican vote and his winning margin in the upper midwest were those traditionally Democratic blue collar men who voted for the larger than life hero--the people for whom professional wrestling is a good, fun show.