American Politics from 2019 on

[Sean Hayden]

That's definitely what it looks like.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Though it doesn't encompass the whole picture, I agree with the article below--kayfabe politics have proven successful in the US. It's written from a British perspective, but it's not as if American professional 'wrestling' is unfamiliar to the rest of the world.

'Sad but true – Donald Trump really did wrestle his way into the White House'

Do you remember World Wrestling Entertainment? For many people, the show, in which muscle-bound wrestlers in tight tights throw one another around in staged fights, is a nostalgic throwback to the early 2000s, when it played briefly on Channel 4. Today, its mix of soap opera, theatre and athletic spectacle still draws millions of viewers each week. To some, it’s a guilty pleasure; to others, timeless entertainment. Still, few would associate it with the serious world of politics.

For Donald Trump, though, professional wrestling is a lifelong passion. His announcement in November that the former CEO of WWE, Linda McMahon, would take up the role of education secretary in his cabinet of curiosities elicited shock and disbelief. It is impossible to fully understand US politics today without understanding the significance of pro wrestling.

Long before McMahon’s nomination, Trump was the first occupant of the Oval Office to be a WWE Hall of Fame inductee, an honour that marked his decades-long business relationship with the company. Trump has hosted two WrestleManias, the WWE’s flagship annual event, appeared more than a dozen times on WWE programmes, played a leading role in two storylines, and gotten physical (albeit to a very limited, awkward degree) around the ring itself. It’s now widely acknowledged that pro wrestling is key to Trump as a political phenomenon. Yet its influence is bigger than Trump. Wrestling has become a key element to understand the reshaping of US politics itself – particularly the Republican right.

...

As the US political sphere becomes one gigantic pro wrestling arena, traditional theories and frameworks are inadequate for making sense of events. We need, therefore, to turn to pro wrestling for answers, particularly the industry-specific concept of “kayfabe”. Initially a label for the illusion that pro wrestling’s predetermined performances were “real”, today, kayfabe describes the peculiar way fans engage with pro wrestling as an acknowledged performance form. In her own insightful writings on pro wrestling and politics, the writer and author Abraham Josephine Riesman proposes “neokayfabe” as a label for Trump-inspired Republican strategies that deliberately blur truth and fiction so that producers and consumers lose the ability to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t.

The idea of politics as kayfabe can be taken further. In my view, the relationship between pro wrestling fans and performances are analogous to how electorates engage with contemporary politics more generally. Trump and his supporters are an extreme case of a wider phenomenon. Enjoying pro wrestling involves a deliberate suspension of disbelief, whereby fans acknowledge the theatricality of the performance while investing in it emotionally. Spectators collaborate with the performers by playing along as “believing fans”, cheering and booing as conventions dictate, embracing the spectacle even while recognising its pretence. In pro wrestling terms this is called “keeping kayfabe”.

This mirrors people’s engagement with the artifice surrounding contemporary, professionalised politics. We all know, for example, that politicians’ words are written by speechwriters, based on focus group findings, targeted at specific voter demographics, identified by pollsters and strategists. Yet supporters suspend disbelief, cheer conference speeches and emotionally invest in sentiments they express, all while knowing and accepting and even discussing in detail the calculations behind their construction. In other words, they keep kayfabe. Politics increasingly amounts to this: electorates acting out their role as “believing supporters” while maintaining a knowing cynicism about the whole performance.

What makes Trump special is thus not that he personifies “pro wrestlingified” politics, but that his supporters are willing to suspend their disbelief and support his campaign when its fakery is so blatant. If the best our political systems offer their understandably jaded electorates is the option to “suspend disbelief” and “keep kayfabe” with a political campaign they view as essentially simulated, we shouldn’t be shocked many choose the one with an anti-establishment pose and chaotic performance style (each products of a pro wrestling pedigree).

[Sean Hayden]

Oh, this is an interesting take.

[Brian Peacock]

[Sean Hayden]

[Tero]

Elsewhere:
Hlafordlaes

Trump's cabinet is a clear sign the USA has fully matured into crony capitalism, in this case a mix of Oligarchic and Big Firm capitalism.
Americans, by and large, have been trained since 1980 to love and admire this rising form of feudalism while learning to distrust the fair rule of law that might restrain it. This certainly dovetails nicely with the Calvinism baked into the nation's culture, now spiced with the haughty taunts of "winners" over their exploited, but nonetheless willing, admiring subjects.

By February, just what Americans tossed into the rubbish bin and burnt will become nastily apparent. They prefer security over freedom, and shall have neither. Bottom line: Propaganda-driven fear and loathing of others is the ideal nose ring to tug Americans into the abyss, as Goebbels before them well knew. Sig heil!!

[Tero]

Shadow government
https://www.threads.net/@maddowshow/pos ... GcYddSUq4g
Below that
I agree with him but for this to be effective, it requires the Democratic Party to both get out of bed with billionaires and corporations and to elevate the younger parts of the party to the top. Unfortunately as we’ve seen in recent weeks and even today, they aren’t going to do that. The old guard rather cling to their power than relinquish it to fight. This is only going to cause more apathy and allow the fascists to steamroll the electorate.

[pErvinalia]

The people are revolting (not disgusting). Voting for allegedly anti-establishment candidates, and cheering on CEO killing. I wonder if the elite class will wake up to this before they start swinging from lamp posts?

[Brian Peacock]

Nah. If they feel threatened they'll just lean hatder into authoritarianism.

[macdoc]

Harris will be the cleanup crew in 2028.

Kamala Harris
Democrats eye Harris 2028 presidential run as they devise political comeback
Party aides are confident in US vice-president’s ability to bounce back, including a bid for California governor

snip

“Since Donald Trump has rewritten the rules – the norms – I don’t believe Kamala Harris or anyone should try to go with precedent, ever,” said Donna Brazile, a Harris ally, Al Gore 2000 presidential campaign manager and political commentator. “There are no rule books.”

That argues against putting the kids in charge....will need old guard and new to scrub the taint away.

[pErvinalia]

Nah. If they feel threatened they'll just lean hatder into authoritarianism.

There won't be enough protection given the amount of guns in America. Who's going to want to be a CEO soon?

God, I'm sounding like Crumple.

[pErvinalia]

Harris will be the cleanup crew in 2028.

Kamala Harris
Democrats eye Harris 2028 presidential run as they devise political comeback
Party aides are confident in US vice-president’s ability to bounce back, including a bid for California governor

snip

“Since Donald Trump has rewritten the rules – the norms – I don’t believe Kamala Harris or anyone should try to go with precedent, ever,” said Donna Brazile, a Harris ally, Al Gore 2000 presidential campaign manager and political commentator. “There are no rule books.”

That argues against putting the kids in charge....will need old guard and new to scrub the taint away.

They need a younger Bernie Sanders.

[Brian Peacock]

Nah. If they feel threatened they'll just lean hatder into authoritarianism.

There won't be enough protection given the amount of guns in America. Who's going to want to be a CEO soon?

God, I'm sounding like Crumple.

But they enjoy the protection of the state. Very few privately owned tanks and attack helicopters.

[Brian Peacock]

Harris will be the cleanup crew in 2028.

Kamala Harris
Democrats eye Harris 2028 presidential run as they devise political comeback
Party aides are confident in US vice-president’s ability to bounce back, including a bid for California governor

snip

“Since Donald Trump has rewritten the rules – the norms – I don’t believe Kamala Harris or anyone should try to go with precedent, ever,” said Donna Brazile, a Harris ally, Al Gore 2000 presidential campaign manager and political commentator. “There are no rule books.”

That argues against putting the kids in charge....will need old guard and new to scrub the taint away.

They need a younger Bernie Sanders.

Given their appalling strategizing in the run-up and during the election it seems pretty obvious that the function of the Democratic Party is to perpetuate the Democratic Party as an institution. They don't need to win, or rule, or legislate to do that. They don't even have to be relevant to people's everyday lives.

[pErvinalia]

Nah. If they feel threatened they'll just lean hatder into authoritarianism.

There won't be enough protection given the amount of guns in America. Who's going to want to be a CEO soon?

God, I'm sounding like Crumple.

But they enjoy the protection of the state. Very few privately owned tanks and attack helicopters.

There's not enough tanks to protect all the CEOs. This won't be the last CEO we see offed.