A mixed martial arts (MMA) event is scheduled to take place on the White House lawn on June 14th. There could surely be no more appropriate or damning symbol of Donald Trump’s presidency than the sight of construction crews erecting a cage on the South Lawn, or the White House now dwarfed by a huge, arched lighting grid, which the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) calls “the claw”.
MMA, frequently referred to as “cage fighting”, involves a mishmash of fighting disciplines, including boxing, wrestling, judo, ju-jitsu and karate, all in the same bout. It is a particularly violent sport that celebrates overt aggression. When Trump joins the crowd of more than 4,000 people on the South Lawn, he will be very much at home, not only literally but also metaphorically. There is a strong case to be made that cage fighting is the perfect symbol of both his persona and his administration.
Trump himself bristles with aggression. He relishes violence or the threat of violence both at home and abroad – from the brutal treatment of migrants in Minneapolis and beyond to his escapades in Venezuela, Iran and elsewhere in this troubled world. He might not personally take any of the risks faced by MMA fighters, but he delights in a permanent show of macho aggression, which is an essential part of the Maga performance.
It’s perhaps relevant that the violent extravaganza and crass show of male strength and virility at the White House coincides with Trump’s 80th birthday, at a time when there are ever more questions about the apparently increasing frequency of his trips to the doctor, despite boasting what he and they insist is a “spectacular health record”.
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Cage fighting is an apt metaphor for his approach to foreign policy. Trump seems to believe that conducting a war is no more complex than putting two fighters in a cage to battle things out, with the stronger one inevitably coming out on top – an approach that explains the fiasco in Iran, the disastrous war that he claimed would be over in a few days.
He is now finding out, to his cost, that victory in the real world does not always go to the one that can throw the stronger punches in a narrowly defined arena. War is not all about what happens “in the cage” in the immediate theatre of war or who has the biggest bombs. He may be beginning to appreciate that there is a wider world in which precisely defined war aims and realistic strategies matter; in which the perspective, resilience and determination of the military underdog are important factors; where collateral damage to your friends carries a price; and in which allies need to be nurtured rather than treated as punchbags. He may finally even see that it is not just a country’s enemies who can inflict damage – so too can public opinion.
It does not seem entirely coincidental that even as the peace talks in Pakistan were breaking down a few months ago, Trump was filmed attending an MMA event in Miami, watching the violent action from close up.
The cage-fighting event has been timed to mark the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States. The anniversary will also involve the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars on a major renovation of the Capitol, including the sanctioning of $17.4 million (€15 million) to repair two fountains and some associated works, a project costing vastly more than the $3.3 million the Biden administration had estimated, according to the New York Times.
All of this – the vulgar gaudification of the White House, the gilding of the Oval Office, the paving over the Rose Garden, the multimillion dollar outlay on fountains, the questions over the awarding of the construction projects, the plans for an oversized ballroom and the notion of staging cage fighting in the gardens where Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy once welcomed guests – is part of the style we have come to expect from the US president. But Trump’s essential tackiness will reach its zenith on June 14th, which may come to be looked on as a crass low point in the country’s history.
If Trump has anything to do with it, Americans will have a visible reminder. He has compared the giant metal edifice now obscuring views of the White House to the Eiffel Tower, suggesting on social media that it might even be kept there in perpetuity. “Many don’t know that in Paris, France, the Eiffel Tower, 1889, it was built, it was supposed to be taken down immediately after the World’s Fair,” he said on TikTok. “We’re building something in front of the White House that’s quite attractive to a lot of people. It’s going to have the big UFC fight on June 14th, and I’m looking at it, and maybe we’ll never, ever take it down.”
The fact that the $60 million event is being paid for, the White House claims, by the UFC – which is banking on getting all of that and far more back in free publicity – seems to fit perfectly with the grifting, crypto-shilling spirit of the presidency. Podcaster Joe Rogan described the cage fight as a “gimmick” and said it was a “weird” thing to host at the White House during a war. Trump was characteristically philosophical. “Life is a gimmick, if you think about it, right? But it’s a good gimmick,” he told Time magazine.
It is truly difficult to imagine a weirder or less admirable symbol of the United States’ history than a crass commercial display of a sport that glorifies aggression and violent combat.
The event later this month should be read in conjunction with last month’s so-called “enhanced games”, backed by Donald Trump jnr, in which participants were encouraged to take performance-enhancing drugs. Trump seems determined that his legacy will be to wipe out all traces of what a finer US president, Abraham Lincoln, once called “the better angels of our nature”.
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The poet Juvenal coined the expression “bread and circuses” to summarise the methods Roman emperors used to distract and appease the people. If he were writing today, he would no doubt decide that the phrase “cages and crypto” was more apt.
Bobby McDonagh is a former ambassador of Ireland to London, Rome and Brussels
