Plans for the extended celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence are still coming together, but it will have all the crowd-pleasing glitz the Trump administration can muster.
There will be a military parade and fireworks, of course. There will be something called the Patriot Games, in which a boy and girl from each state will come to the capital for what we are assured is a friendly athletic competition and not a Hunger Games-style deathmatch. There will be an Indy-car race through the streets of Washington, because as any local could testify, you definitely want to stand out in the hot sun for a couple of hours in the summer in DC.
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com
Monica Crowley: "None of this would be happening without President Trump's vision & his perseverance. His vision for what he wanted in order to celebrate America's big birthday party. He jokes that he tries to take credit for America's 250th birthday but we won't let him. Haha. That's exactly right"
But the event President Trump is most excited about is a mixed martial arts showdown sponsored by the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the CEO of which is Trump’s good friend Dana White. Held in an octagon erected on the South Lawn of the White House, Freedom Fights 250 will feature six contests in which UFC pros pay tribute to American liberty by exchanging fierce blows and bodily fluids. A stadium with seating for 5,000 fans will be built for the festivities, while Trump claims that 100,000 more will watch on giant screens from the Ellipse outside.
Not only does Trump himself have a long history with the UFC, at a time when conservatives have literally declared their opposition to empathy, MMA is a perfect expression of the world as they want it to be: brutal, exploitative, and built on the nexus between masculinity and violence.
This administration and the entire right-wing movement is full of pasty edgelords looking for other men through whom they can achieve a vicarious experience of masculinity. And the performance of manhood to which they are most attracted is violence, whether it’s in the ring or perpetrated by a masked ICE goon giving a beat-down to a peaceful protester. So it’s no surprise that the administration has turned itself into a promotion machine for MMA, and in particular the UFC.
FBI Director Kash Patel recently announced that UFC fighters will be coming to Quantico to train FBI agents in MMA techniques. Because while it’s true that the bureau has cracked a lot of important cases in its history — the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 attacks, taking down criminals like Al Capone and the Unabomber — just imagine what it would have been able to accomplish if agents had known how to perform a triangle choke or an arm bar. Who knows, with a little more practice in ground-and-pound, maybe they would have found Savannah Guthrie’s mom by now.
A note from Aaron: Working with brilliant contributors like Paul takes resource
