Professional Wrestling, RNC Style: This Time, It's Trump

Originally published at: Professional Wrestling, RNC Style: This Time, It’s Trump - TPM – Talking Points Memo

In professional wrestling, there’s a concept called “kayfabe.” It’s what describes the staged fights and beefs between different performers. These staged fights are the lifeblood of the genre. Throughout the RNC, we’ve seen a kind of inverse kayfabe. Instead of miming anger, the Trumpified GOP has focused intently on projecting calmness and normalcy. References to…

Hulk is known for his keen insight on American political history
So that’s nice.

15 Likes

OMG a 90 min address? No way am I watching. What a waste of air time.

  • The 8 p.m. CT hour will feature evangelist Franklin Graham, Trump son Eric and, finally, UFC CEO Dana White, who will introduce Trump for a 90 minute address scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. CT.
6 Likes

I know everyone’s already thinking it, but:

20 Likes

Makes you miss Jesse Ventura

14 Likes

And that’s key because the non-primetime events are riddled with rage and ressentiment, kayfabe full frontal.

It’s no accident that some of Trump’s staunchest stans are pro-wrestling touts and devotees but that does not imply they are any less serious in their desire to take over the joint: they know the difference but control in a democratic republic is no more or less real to them than their reactionary version and a lot less desirable since the rule-of-law stuff gets in the way of their fun.

4 Likes

The convergence of recent events has been incredibly disheartening. My only hope is that the republicans, drunk with power, brag about what they’re actually going to do and freak normal people out and that the democrats just pick a fucking direction and stay with it. This is unbearable right now. It’s like Weimar Germany. I don’t want to be a historical object lesson in what not to do.

26 Likes

No worries - he’s going to be at least 45 minutes to an hour late, and finish early… :roll_eyes:

9 Likes

Let’s think.

Fake wrestler => Fake president.

QED

12 Likes

I’ve been thinking about President Camacho since 2016. Between 2016 and 2020, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that unlike Trump he sought out the best available counsel.

8 Likes

And they are doing everything they can to disguise that behavior is their real face, not the fake one they are showing in prime time (for the most part, Vance went there a few times). Democrats absolutely must expose their real plans for the nation, they are so unpopular that it’s going to win the election if then can pin Project 2025 on Republicans despite their play for niceness.

Trump is going to speak for 90 minutes? That seems excessive, especially for a man who has been falling asleep. The longer Trump talks, the more he starts to ramble and ignore the script. I’m sure his handlers are begging him to stick to the teleprompter text and not riff on whatever comes to mind, but I don’t think Trump or his audience want that.

There’s a real chance Trump muffs something…too bad the media will give it a pass for more breathless coverage of the latest rumor of Biden stepping down. Honestly, I swear that Trump could use the n-word and say he enjoyed the 15 year old models on Epstein Island and the press would give it a pass.

17 Likes

Oh he will just put his hand on the Bible, any Bible and declare himself President

3 Likes

Agreed – heaven forfend.
It will not even be in the background noise at my house.
I’m sure I can get everything I need to know about it, in less time, by reading tomorrow.

1 Like

The purpose is to set up a deliberate contrast with Biden. It will be a demonstration of Trump’s unflagging physical vitality, which is needed because physical vitality is now being treated by the rich-owned media and high-ranking Dems as an essential job requirement. Encouraging that stupid standard doesn’t help Trump unless he also makes a point of satisfying it himself. So that will be his goal: to present what appears to be a real test of endurance.

It will of course be rigged in multiple ways: performance drugs, breaks (disguised), a prompter, and fawning emcees and press who will praise his performance. Donald doesn’t take a test except to cheat.

It won’t matter whether he spews word-salad. His bloviation is not lessoops! more cogent or truth-based than the nonsense rank-and-file GOPers say every day. Neither the viewers nor the news-talkers have the critical listening and thinking skills to even notice, let alone criticize, what he says. They do all have great hair, though.

But he won’t spew word-salad. I expect him to stay on-script, because this is the moment when Project 2025 must be on its best behavior to slip past the electorate. Trump is aided in this by having cultivated extremely low expectations. Everybody jokes that he can’t even read a teleprompter, but of course he can, and he has in the past. It’s an extremely easy bar to clear, and he will clear it.

Trump is basically “shooting the moon” in life. He is such a relentlessly evil failson that it not only starts to look like a virtue, it has wrecked our ability to distinguish bad from good. In Hearts, you can win by losing every hand. That’s what this is.

11 Likes

He’s already mentally made himself president, and per SCOTUS, that’s the same as winning the election.

8 Likes

Good lord, 90 minutes? Will they maintain their sanity? Will they slip into ecstasy? Or will they be completely numb, unable to speak, forget about the children, or even drive home?

4 Likes

Teleprompter Don is not what the masses want to see or hear at the convention. They want the feel of a rally. Will he give them that? I don’t know but 90 mins. of him being on a teleprompter is going to strain him. He needs to get in his digs and honestly no one really can control him -even Heritage. If he comes across as boring as Vance, his fans may look for the exits.

2 Likes

They will all be raptured. It’s what they’ve been waiting for right?

7 Likes

Be the first on yer block to donate a testicle!

DISCLAIMER

Only right testicles from people of the right persuasion will be accepted.

11 Likes

Heritage Americans - overripe and unshapely.

4 Likes