President Donald Trump's fixation with the UFC and mixed martial arts is infecting the whole U.S. government, according to a new piece from the New York Times, turning key diplomatic efforts into a cage fight.
"How do we want the world to see us? Which of our nation’s traits do we highlight — as a show of our strengths, as an assertion of our values, as an act of self-definition?" Times writer Frank Bruni questioned. "In the past we answered that question by helping to rebuild Europe after World War II, by tackling the scourge of AIDS in Africa, by sharing our trailblazing scientific advances and by tapping our extraordinary wealth. President Trump is answering it with brutes in cages beating each other to pulps."
Trump's UFC fandom was, of course, most visible over his birthday weekend last month, when the promotion held a fight card on the grounds of the White House, tearing up the South Lawn to erect an enormous venue complete with a fight cage. This, however, was only the tip of the iceberg, Bruni argued, as the Trump administration is also forging ahead with a UFC partnership that would see it "promote such pummeling abroad."
"The administration is calling the arrangement 'sports diplomacy,' and there are images of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Dana White, U.F.C.’s chief executive officer, holding up a memorandum of understanding at the State Department on June 11," Bruni added. "They’re smiling, as if they accomplished something important. As if there were a global barbarism deficit and the United States is nobly stepping up to fill the void."
He continued: "As if an important emblem of human civilization and expression of human culture will finally get the recognition it deserves. As if the torch of liberty can now shine brighter than ever, because it will be carried by warriors of such vision and valor that one of them, upon winning his South Lawn brawl, used his moment at the mic to crow a cuckoo credo: 'Michelle Obama is a man!' That’s what a White House obsessed with trade imbalances is electing to export."
Bruni noted that the government has created such partnerships before, including one with the NFL, but despite the hard-hitting nature of both sports, he nevertheless remained more disgusted at this new MMA partnership, expressing dismay at "our government’s advancement of such savagery while we’re retreating from the kinds of engagements that lessen hardship and relieve misery."
"Trump’s visions of American might are either gaudy or, in the case of U.F.C. matches, grotesque," he wrote. "Cage fighting fits perfectly into his rejection of anything that codes as elitist. Out with the Kennedy Center, in with the Octagon. So much for symphonies, bring on the gladiators. Who needs discernment when you can flex domination?"
