What shall we call contemporary Republican ideology? Is it conservatism? Libertarianism? Authoritarianism? Trumpism? Fascism?
How about kayfabe?
Old kayfabe was built on the solid, flat foundation of one big lie: that wrestling was real. Neokayfabe, on the other hand, rests on a slippery, ever-wobbling jumble of truths, half-truths, and outright falsehoods, all delivered with the utmost passion and commitment. After a while, the producers and the consumers of neokayfabe tend to lose the ability to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t. Wrestlers can become their characters; fans can become deluded obsessives who get off on arguing or total cynics who gobble it all up for the thrills, truth be damned.
Does all that remind you of anything?
Neokayfabe is the essence of the Republican strategy for campaigning and governance today. That’s no surprise, given Mr. McMahon’s influence on G.O.P. politics. His product, filled with bigotry and malevolence, was a primary cultural influence on countless millennials, especially during the W.W.F.’s late-century peak (in 1999, Gallup estimated that 18 percent of Americans, roughly 50 million people, counted themselves as pro wrestling fans), and those millennials have entered the Beltway — and the voting booth. Ms. McMahon has become a major Republican fund-raiser, candidate and official. And, most important of all, there’s the Trump connection.
Mr. McMahon and Donald Trump have been close friends for nearly 40 years. Even before he met Mr. McMahon, Mr. Trump had been a lifelong fan of pro wrestling — as well as a chronic dissembler — but it was Mr. McMahon who ushered Mr. Trump into the world of neokayfabe. Mr. Trump acted as the “host” of two installments of “WrestleMania.” Most spectacularly, Mr. Trump performed as himself in a story line where he and Mr. McMahon pretended to be bitter enemies, sending proxy wrestlers to engage in trial by combat at 2007’s “WrestleMania 23.” Mr. Trump is the first — though possibly not the last — member of the W.W.E. Hall of Fame to occupy the Oval Office.
Before he met Mr. McMahon, Mr. Trump had probably never worked a rowdy arena into a bitter, liberated frenzy by feeding it a mix of verboten truths and outrageous lies. But that skill, so essential in wrestling, would become Mr. Trump’s world-changing trademark.
We’re being too generous to other industries if we single out politics as the only place where neokayfabe has taken over, whether through wrestling’s influence or by convergent evolution. Think of entertainment: Some pop stars’ massive success largely rests on fans’ assumption that carefully choreographed “behind the scenes” hints about inspiration and heartbreak are legit. Or finance: Many C.E.O.s speak with blinding optimism about their companies because they cannot distinguish between their own truths and falsehoods anymore. Or, dare I say it, the news media: Pundits compete for attention, and nothing grabs outraged clicks quite like planting a ludicrous argument in the soil of an inarguable truth.
In May of 1999, when Mr. McMahon was approaching the peak of his cultural influence, a wrestler named Owen Hart fell more than 70 feet during a failed zip-line stunt at a wrestling show. He hit the ring. The fall killed him. Thousands of people in the live audience saw it happen, and at least some weren’t sure if what they were seeing was real. An ambulance, used for Mr. McMahon as part of a set piece involving a fake injury earlier in the show, took Mr. Hart to the hospital, where he was declared dead. But the event continued, and eventually the crowd was able to cheer along. In the world of neokayfabe, even something as real as death seemed like it could be fake.
I love pro wrestling, but I fear neokayfabe. It turns the world into a hall of mirrors from which it is nearly impossible to escape. It rots the mind and eats the soul. And yet, we cannot return to the world of old kayfabe, either — we know too much. Perhaps the only antidote to neokayfabe is radical honesty. It’s less fun, but it tends to do less material harm, in the long run.
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