R. Adelman
Philadelphia 21 hours ago
I guess it’s OK for someone to suspend disbelief for purposes of entertainment. Entertainment often depends on make-believe. Suspension of disbelief can be useful in religious settings also. Religion depends on faith. But to suspend disbelief when the truth is essential, like for justice in a courtroom, or medical matters, or decision-making in government–areas where people’s lives depend on knowing the truth–well, such a suspension of disbelief and willingness to accept lies is just…deplorable. There’s no room for make-believe when truth is a necessity.
Michael
Boston 8 hours ago
While this is surely true of some of Trump’s voters, it hardly explains all of them or even most of them. If I had to make a completely unscientific analysis of his voters I would say that a quarter of them can be described by this phenomenon.
Far more of them are single issue voters and they will continue to support him, or not, completely dependent on how he handles their single issue, be it tax cuts for the wealthy, or eliminating legal abortion.
Finally, a significant portion, perhaps just as many as the first category, are truly disgusted with the system and want real, honest change. These are the people that, theoretically, could be reached by a liberal candidate like Bernie Sanders that promises to stop the bleeding and make our country fair again, whether it is great or not.
American Orthodox
Raleigh 5 hours ago
A major point Rogers misses is that professional wrestling, like Donald Trump and Alex Jones, vindicates its audience’s feelings about an enemy that the ‘sport’ vilifies. In the 80s, lots of wrestling villains were foreigners, particularly Russian, and the heroes were all-American (read: white, blonde) patriots like Hulk Hogan; now you can find greedy businessmen manipulating down-and-out blue collar workers in the ring. The villains are very wealthy; the heroes are struggling people who lose their house and their job.
The same is employed by Trump and Jones. Trump echoes and thereby validates his supporters’ feelings about, say, Mexicans, and Jones validates his audience’s feelings about the government—both are going to kill you and everyone you love. Therefore, they must be stopped.
The main difference is that wrestling fans know what they’re watching is fake (for the most part). That can’t be said about supporters of Trump and Jones.
winchestereast
usa 5 hours ago
Wrestlers involved in the McMahon productions were juiced with steroids for years to produce the entertaining rage roids and cartoon physiques.
Five dozen pre 50 yr old wrestlers died from heart ailments, suicide, violence. They were a dispensable part of the lucrative corporation run by Donald’s small business pick. Fantasy. Exploitation. Ignorance. Abuse. Billions in profit with zero regard for real consequences to real people. Tax policies that rewarded McMahon with credits in one state because income was declared in another. Credits could be sold resulting in a double win. A scam. Legal. No wonder Trump picked her. Only thing real about their dealings is the Fix is in. Americans won’t win. Science is not part of the equation. Nor morality, justice, truth, patriotism. Sham. Beginning to end. Jones, McMahon, Trump. A trifecta of nastiness. And people seem to love it.
It’s worth noting that Donald Trump is the only President in the WWE Hall of Fame. He and Vince McMahon are buddies and he beat Vince, by proxy, in a haircut match and Vince had to have his head shaved.
Wrestling has evolved so most fans know the matches are fake, but they still believe the backstage episodes are real. By that I mean the romances and so on. Every WWE wedding has ended in disaster.
The sad thing about Trump is there is no reality on stage or off. I heard the authors of a book on the campaign say that unlike Bernie and Trump who believed what they said, that Hillary thought it was her job to hire people to tell her what to say.
I think that is wrong because Trump never believed in anything, unless you count the racism and hate that underlies most of his positions. Clearly none of the specific policies ever had any meaning to him. It is so sad that so many Trump supporters believe in him, and in my opinion, it is because they share his underlying racism and hate. I don’t think there is an easy solution to that..
sandy bryant
charlottesville, va 5 hours ago
This works in wrestling because no one is going to get hurt, no real punches or slams are going to happen. Too bad for us that any wars we now start will have real bombs and any toxins dumped in our waters will be real poison, and people who lose health insurance will have real illnesses they can’t get treatment for. We’re kufubed.
L Fallon
Essex County, MA5 hours ago
Great essay, thank you so much. The one thing Rogers didn’t quite say is that the reason kayfabe works is because the thing that is pretended is something the audience very much WANTS to be true. The audience wants fake wrestlers to be godlike warriors; they want Hilary Clinton to be a child abuser or terminally ill, so she won’t win the election; they want Sandy Hook to be a hoax, so it won’t drive gun control legislation; they want the President to build a wall so they can feel America is dominant again, etc. Many (most?) voters vote on image identity and not policies. Donald Trump won because voters in key states preferred the identity he projected (a real, tough man) over Clinton’s smarty pants woman. This explains why so many people vote against their policy interests. Image is everything, and substance is nothing.
William O. Beeman
Minneapolis, Minnesota5 hours ago
One of the Sandy Hook parents who lost a child admitted that he listened to Alex Jones regularly before the terrible shooting tragedy. He claimed that Jones provided “entertainment value,” and indeed that may be why a lot of people listen to his gonzo rants.
After Jones claimed that Sandy Hook was a fraud perpetrated by actors to provide an excuse for gun control, this parent woke up and realized what a fraud Jones was. Jones has never recanted this insane claim.
Infotainment commentators like Jones and Rush Limbaugh know that being an off-the-wall commentator touting crazy conspiracy theories attracts an audience. They are not promulgating journalism. They are marketing cartoonish craziness, like the National Enquirer spouting headlines like “Princess Diana didn’t die–she was abducted by aliens.”
Unfortunately, people become addicted to this nonsense and start to believe it. There are a lot of Trump supporters in this category.
Jeremy Mott
West Hartford, CT5 hours ago
Makes sense to me to hear that this whole Administration is fake: fake election, fake facts, fake promises, fake President. We’re all being taken for a ride as “roller coaster enthusiasts” on a “runaway mine car.”
The reason our country is divided is that Democrats decry the false promises and fake solutions of the GOP, and Republicans embrace them as part of “the ride.” Doesn’t matter whether government “works” or not: we’re all screaming for our lives. Dems want the ride to be over, and Republicans want to go again, just for the thrill of it all!
Paul
Beaverton, Oregon5 hours ago
One should rue the election that clearly brought the antics of the WWF to the presidential stage. But here we apparently are indeed.
Those on the left likely cringe as such a destruction of the democratic process, but one need look only as far as Middlebury or Yale to find university students trading in a similar way as Trump and his band: using emotions to drive their views, not facts. Just as the left bemoans the knuckle draggers who deny climate change, explaining it away with contorted, tortured logic, one can say similar things about the emotions tied to the need for safe spaces and trigger warning and constant accusations of cultural appropriation. Neither side is using much in the way of fact or any objective reality. Rather both simply tap into the emotional and allege their opposition is using “fake” facts or “hate” speech to create an opinion. Just as patriotism may be the last refuge of the scoundrel, emotional diatribes, either from those calling themselves liberal or conservative, robs us of any real debate. We now just have bread and circus.
Marc Merlin
Atlanta5 hours ago
Nick Rogers nails it when he compares the appeal of Donald Trump has to his supporters as being the same as that a professional wrestler has to his fans: both groups “admire a man who can identify their most primal feelings, validate them, and choreograph their release.”
And the reason this analysis is so politically valuable is that it refutes the often made claim that Trump voters will turn on their man as soon as they realize that he has failed to deliver on the many promises he made to them as a candidate.
Trump’s supporters are not in love with his policies, they are in love with his performance. And, as long as he keeps delivering the rage and the bluster and the Fox-News-fueled tweets, they are going to keep applauding.
It’s better for Democrats not to waste their time trying to change the minds of these die-hard DJT fanboys and, instead, use shifting demographics to bring more people into the electoral process and out vote them at the polls.
JayK
The parallel you draw from WWE and Alex Jones to Donald Trump is unfortunately a valid one.
Tragically, though, we have arrived at a point where almost half of the people that vote apparently feel that it’s OK to suspend disbelief when electing and evaluating the fitness of a president.
It’s nothing less than a complete abdication of the responsibility of being a thinking, plausibly serious adult.
If we can’t even take the election of the president seriously anymore, I don’t hold out much hope for our future. It’s intellectual slothfulness and apathy of the highest, most disgraceful order.
kount kookula
east hampton, ny1 hour ago
or, in other words, “I know it’s fake, you know it’s fake, I know you know it’s fake, you know I know you know it’s fake” = Alternate Reality (and the media should pay more attention to what the President feels in his heart vs. what come out of his mouth).
However, at some point & as much as it hurts, one must eventually face up to the fact that Santa Claus & the Easter Bunny are really your parents.
The difference here is that many supporters of Alex Jones and President Trump surely believe what they hear is real.
Tom
I don’t know which is worse: using Sandy Hook to entertain with a vile lie, or being knowingly and gladly entertained by such a lie. Maybe running for president by pandering to such an demented clown and his fans is worse.
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