I don’t think enough is made over the rise of “professional wrestling” as a breeding ground for Donald Trump‘s America.
The entire title of it is misleading.
The phrase “professional wrestling,” has two parts. The first, “professional,” denotes someone who is engaged in a specific activity: in this case sports.
The second word, “wrestling,” means that activity wherein two athletes use hands and feet to attempt to physically subdue one another and the outcome is determined by strength, knowledge, speed and cunning.
When put together in this way, however, the phrase denotes a real sport by combatants who are getting paid to compete in an athletic endeavor.
This would make it, by definition, akin to other professional sporting events: football, tennis or baseball. These professional athletes in football, soccer or tennis get paid to complete is a sporting event where the outcome is unknown, even to them, until the final point or the final whistle.
Of course, the word “professional,” can also mean one engaged in a specific activity, such as a performing art, like an actor, a singer or a pianist.
“Professional wrestling” has been around for some time before the 1980’s, but by the mid ‘80s it grew exponentially in size, viewership and revenue.
Yet, people think of it as a sport. Why is that?
Because any American who went to high school knew someone who wrestled. Wrestling for the most part is a sport that takes little equipment, and anyone can attempt it. The outcome is unknown to spectators and the wrestlers until the winner pins their opponent or ends the match with more points.
But professional wrestling is not wrestling.
Professional wrestling is not a sport.
Professional wrestling is entertainment.
The WWE™ is entertainment.
It has a flare about it because there is athleticism, perceived combat, and lots of human drama.
However, professional wrestling is a scripted story, told by actors in a sporting arena or venue. There are acrobatic theatrics combined with scripted conflict. The conflict is all manufactured over grievances that are pre-written screenplays with pre-ordained outcomes by people who are actors.
The thing about “professional wrestling” is that it is truly fake. It is not a sport. It does not depend on muscles. Or skill. Or strength. Or even athleticism.
Yet people have flocked to it in record numbers since the 1980s for entertainment as a sporting event.
But it’s not a sporting event. It is only an entertainment event with a façade of acrobatic and violent physicalness surrounding it.
This is Donald Trump‘s America of the 2010’s and 20s.
Donald Trump’s America is Fake.
It has all the trappings of reality, but it is scripted. It is set up for one purpose, and one purpose only: to make money through entertainment.
It makes money by creating false conflict. It makes the Left the enemy over perceived grievances that there is no attempt to actually resolve. Resolving the problem would make the grievance disappear. That doesn’t work for the show.
The show is what’s important. You need people tuning in to watch the next episode. You need to make up a new grievance. You need to make up a new conflict of Us v. Them.
And it’s all fake.
The conflict between wrestlers is baloney. But it has flash. It has panache. It has insults. It has vulgarity. It has anger and rage. The audience, either in person or on television, picks heroes and villains. The spectacle has all the qualities that you need to get your emotions involved in the spectacle that’s in front of you.
Boy, doesn’t that seem like the last 10 years?
It’s not hard to understand when he says “All politicians lie,” and then he gets away with it.
It’s not hard for him to say “Fake media,” because he created the fake media. That’s what public relations is and does. And the one thing Trump truly is legendary in is public relations.
He scripts the show. America watches. America gets emotional. He rewrites the narrative for the nest episode. America watches. America gets emotional. Rinse and repeat.
Like viewers and followers of professional wrestling, Trump’s followers and viewers know it is false. His America knows he is lying. His America knows it is fake. Yet his followers still come back for more.
Why? Because he has a list of grievances and characters that his followers love to watch. His Secretary of Defense is a TV star. His other cabinet members are media celebrities, and his press secretary looks like she’s straight out of central casting.
Everyone knows they are performers, and yet they accept them as experts. But they aren’t experts.
He lies to his followers, and yet they don’t see it as a lie, because they love the performance and the emotional high it gives them.
And here we are.
dum spiro, spero 