Trump the wrestler and the 2024 grudge match
August 23, 2024, Bernard Grofman and Jonathan Cervas
To really understand President Donald Trump’s strategy, think of him as a hall-of-fame wrestler generating the highest possible audience on pay-per-view for a comeback grudge match in 2024.
For those with little interest in politics, per se, one way to spark that interest is to turn politics into entertainment. And in that regard, Donald Trump punches above his weight. Trump is experienced in reality TV, having starred in the top-rated NBC show “The Apprentice”. But he also has a longstanding connection to and strongly identifies with another form of entertainment: professional wrestling. President Trump views himself not just as a combatant, but even more importantly as a winner.
Trump sees his story — — and that of his presidency — as rising above adversity. He sneers at those who seek to knock him out, trumpets his defiance, and proclaims himself both a fighter who will never quit, and a champion. Similarly, President Trump has an ongoing friendship with Ultimate Fighting Championship’s President Dana White. Earlier this year, Trump joined his friend White at a featured UFC event in Las Vegas.
And the best metaphor to explain Trump’s behavior is wrestling, as it exists in the stage work of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). President Trump’s way of communicating to his fans is what we might expect from a man in the WWE Hall of Fame. Indeed, he once even staged a fake wrestling match with the founder of that multi-billion-dollar enterprise, Vince McMahon. His campaign rallies resemble the theatrics of a crowded arena for “Monday Night Raw”. It even upsets Trump that the crowd is not featured in the same way that professional wrestling enlists the audience as part of the show. Supporters even bring posters. Trump has posted Tweets with embedded videos edited to show him defeating his opponents (like CNN) in the wrestling ring. As Mitt Romney remarked on CNN, Trump’s behavior meshes perfectly with that of a WWE wrestling star. We believe that Sen. Romney’s assessment is accurate.
In the wrestling world, Trump would be a self-proclaimed a “good guy.” And no hero is complete without enemies. Indeed, the WWE script (and that of the World Wrestling Federation before it) is to create enemies, especially among former “friends.” According to such a WWE script, President Trump was sometimes the friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other times his enemy, and ditto for the leaders of China and North Korea. It makes for more suspense if you never know who will turn on whom, or when. So having President Trump turn on his former allies should come as no surprise to fans of WWE. Remember that Hulk Hogan was at times the all-American Hulkamania, NWO’s villainous “Hollywood” Hogan, among other personality types; both hero and heel.
The drama is not limited to world leaders, who have their own politics in their home countries to play along with this script. Former friends and presidential advisors — Michael Cohen, and even more recently former Attorney General William Barr — easily catch Trump’s ire after defying him. Moreover, once the bad guy has violated the rules of the game, then it’s fair game for the hero to do so as well.
Second, in WWE world, there are no neutrals. While the wrestlers bash each other, both inside and outside the ring, a frequent part of the WWE script is for the wrestlers to turn on the referee or the announcer. This is why Trump’s supposed hatred of the mainstream media fits this script. And of course, coming from a world where everything is faked, it is particularly ironic, but not that surprising, that Trump continues to rant about all of the “fake news” coming from everybody but himself.
Third, in the wrestling world, everything is hyperbole. Fans of wrestling have grown accustomed to exaggerated rhetoric using ridicule, insult, intimidation tactics, fake violence — and lots of threats and even more posing. When Trump encourages those who say “lock her up,” or calls for an end to ballot counting, or calls up election officials to pressure them to find him more votes, this kind of menace is simply the norm in the world of wrestling; the fans know they can think of it as just show, rather than how we, as political scientists, view these antics — as a would-be totalitarian leader emulating a dictator like Vladimir Putin.
Fourth, when the good guy hero loses, it is almost always through trickery, e.g., an opponent’s girlfriend who distracts the referee while shenanigans are going on, and/or a second wrestler who illegally enters the ring to double-team the hero. So, it’s not at all surprising that Trump is claiming “the election was stolen.” That’s what every good guy wrestler who loses to the villain is scripted to say.
Fifth, when the hero loses, that sets the stage for a grudge match. There’s nothing that sells tickets better on pay-per-view than a sequel rematch. And these events are always very well publicized far in advance to build up audience interest. So, we can now look forward with anticipation to the WWE-like grudge match of the century in November 2024; and while there will be plenty of undercard action in the interim — redistricting, hardball politics in Congress, and midterm elections — the former president will never allow us to lose track of the coming main event — even though that event is three years away.
