Hang with me, I am taking you on a strange ride but I have a destination in mind. For the past two years plus, I have heard numerous ‘Trump and reality show’ comparisons, wrong, wrong, wrong. It is not a coincidence that Donald Trump and Vincent Kennedy McMahon, chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment are friends, and incidentally, McMahon’s wife Linda is Trump’s small business czar. Trump was obviously not a fan of little Vinnie’s dad Vincent James McMahon because back in the old days, Vince Sr. of the WWWF, drew clear lines between good and evil.
As a small child, I sat in the lap of my great-granny and knew that Bruno and Haystacks and Bobo were good guys. No ambiguity, no foreign objects pulled from their wrestling tights at the first sign of trouble. I knew I hated Killer and the Baron and Black Jack because they flung insults and flaunted cheating, the crowds knew when to cheer and who to boo. In the new WWE, Junior spawned beer drinking, foul-mouthed anti-heroes, who taught children how to grab their crotches and flip the bird.
In the midst of this metamorphosis, the anti-hero becomes the good guy. We now cheer when the blonde womanizer brags about his abuse of women and insults our heroes, using juvenile verbal jabs. Kids celebrate when the beer guzzling loudmouth, yells at his adversaries and signals he is number one (using the wrong finger). If all this sounds oddly familiar, it is because Donald Trump is reliving the 1990s. President Trump has stolen a page from the old wrestling playbook and choreographed an imaginary grapple between the Democratic Party and the Trumplicans; minus the hair pulling (he would lose that battle). Trump has called his opponents, ‘little, lying,’ crooked and low energy,’ while disparaging entire nations and describing how you grab—ehem, a woman.
As legend has it, 50s wrestler Gorgeous George entered the arena arrayed in gold with stylized coiffured blonde hair, preceded by a woman (I have no proof her name was Melania) in waiting, there to disinfect the ring prior to her boss’s climb between the ropes. George’s theory was that both the people that hate him and those that love him all buy tickets. Trump wants those that love him to love him and those that hate him to love him. As an aside, Muhammad Ali credited George with originating his ‘Louisville Lip’ schtick.
Ding—Ding—Ding! In this corner weighing in at a disputed 239 lbs., in a long red tie and telling tall tales, DONNIE the FLAIR; and his tag team partner, beer drinking BRETT the JUSTICE.
I know this sounds like a fanciful letting off of steam but is this assessment really that far off? A boisterous, self-involved, foolish bottled blonde, screeching and daring anyone to challenge his version of the hyperbolic truth.
Our clean-cut heroes, who ate apple pie and kissed only their wives and children, have been replaced with crude, cursing, womanizing louts, who think a woman who was allegedly assaulted by the newest member of the Supreme Court, is grist for the Trump mill. On November 6th it is time to loosen the turnbuckles, coil the ropes, roll up the mat, secure the klieg lights and stop the pretending. America it is time to enter the squared circle of reality, BRUH-THER!
Vote November 6th for Change.