Trump becomes a regular part of the WWE storylines.
In 2009 he & McMahon announce that Trump had bought the WWE from McMahon.
He hadn't really, but the stock dropped 7% overnight, because the WSJ wasn't in on the kayfabe (wrestler slang for Fake, Babe!)
Later he would pretend to charge McMahon twice the price.

All of this time, of course, Trump was learning the art of manipulating a crowd of a certain type (and very large crowds) from masters of crowd manipulation.
Say whatever you like about McMahon's politics or how dumb the wrestling is, the WWE is huge business.

When Trump entered politics, it wasn't like people couldn't see in his bombastic style the lessons Trump had learned in the WWE. They did, very quickly.
https://www.salon.com/2015/08/17/donald_trump_professional_wrestler_how_the_billionaire_body_slammed_gop_politics_and_why_it_matters/

In wrestling, everyone has a nickname.
It helps people follow the storyline & identify the character.
Trump assigned all of his opponents a nickname. Little Marco Rubio. Low Energy Jeb Bush.
Crooked Hillary. Then Crooked Joe Biden & Crazy Kamala.
It's a simple playbook.

Along with the rise of Trump, we also saw the rise of Pizzagate & QAnon.
These were bizarre conspiracy theories about satanic elites that supposedly ruled the world, that Donald Trump was secretly working to defeat.
Who else was writing storylines out there?

The NYT & Washington Post started counting all of the lies told by Trump during his term as POTUS. He clocked in at well over 35,000. The lines between reality and fantasy weren't just fading, they were disappearing for many. In wrestling this is kayfabe, or 'fake, babe!'

What Vince McMahon did was stop pretending that wrestling was real. This got rid of any limitations on how weird the storylines could be.
It went from kayfabe to neo-kayfabe, or "Yes, it's fake, except for the parts that you believe are real".
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/24/trump-wrestling-mcmahon-villain-election-00088590

People have compared QAnon to an Alternate Reality Game, but why not wrestling?
It has demonic characters, battles between good and evil, and most importantly the suspension of disbelief.
Like neokayfabe, the audience may believe it's over the top, but perhaps partially true.

But back to our main character.
Trump learned from WWE that the important thing was to get people excited, to 'draw heat'. It didn't matter as a 'face' or a heel, if you could generate excitement, you would win.
Trump never went for subtleties & nuance.

Now, though, Trump & his poorly chosen VP pick are on the back foot. When Biden dropped out, Harris unexpectedly hit the ground running & are generating a huge amount of their own heat.
While Trump & Vance are being made to look like fools & just weird, which is castrating the DJT image.

JD Vance apparently understands all this.
He held a rally at the ECW Arena. (Extreme Cage Wrestling)last week but only drew a crowd of a little over 200 in a 2,000 seat arena.
That's far worse than Somoa Joe VS Necro Butcher did at the same arena.
(sometimes I think JD is secretly on our side🤣)
https://www.indy100.com/politics/jd-vance-philadelphia-rally-ecw

So things seem to be going less that wonderful for the Trump campaign. Vance brings more Ice than Heat. Even with his ear scratch, Trump doesn't seem to have the Mojo he used to.

Meanwhile, social media has been set on fire by Walz and Harris. Even if most of the media let the GOP and Trump push them around.
Hey, @nytimes
, are those cancellations starting to hurt yet?

@OldDeckHand I've caught the similarities between Trump on the stump and Trump in the ring. By chance I've done some study on futurism in turn of the century Italy, a movement Mussolini observed, later bringing one of the founders, F. T. Marinetti close to his political operations. There are similarities there that really strike a familiar chord.

@OldDeckHand "The Futurist serata reconfigured the artist “as a performer within a public space” and “art-making became a form of theater” (Hayden 16-17). As the Futurist artist’s role shifted “from creator to innovator, inventor, and visionary”—as he assumed the role of instigator intent on shattering traditions and conventions—his attitude toward audience became more oppositional and contemptuous: “the Futurist artist was remade as a relentless, often obstreperous vocal performer—a voice interrupting and disrupting public discourse” (16). The audience was reconfigured in the process, transformed into the target, object, and conquest of the Futurist performance artist." https://mina-loy.com/chapters/courting-an-audience/1-futurist-performance/

@Liliki
Politics is fun again.