Donald Trump and the Kayfabe Presidency: Professional Wrestling Rhetoric in the White House

By Shannon Bow O'Brien

This book examines Donald Trump's longstanding connections to professional wrestling in relation to how he uses and exploits language, and the ways in which he has weaponized going public never before seen in previous administrations. Trump utilizes the language of wrestling to make rhetorical appeals and draws upon its theatrical tactics to redefine expectations of spaces to fundamentally change the nature of political expectations and expression. Wrestling is almost always about stories within a confined space, and Donald Trump inculcated many of its techniques to command an audience with rhetoric. The emotional performance supersedes truth or accuracy; factual exactness matters less than your presentation of the material. As Donald Trump blends performance and public service, social confusion over boundaries has occurred. Theatrical norms, when applied to daily life, generate vastly different reactions than within the artificial confines of an arena. It is notsimply a muddling of public and private, but rather a jumbling of theatrical and generalized social standards. This book examines these aspects and explores how Donald Trump has also utilized well-established presidential tools in completely new ways in an attempt to build the strongest executive branch in American history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Release date: Jul 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9783030505516

Book preview

© The Author(s) 2020

S. B. O'BrienDonald Trump and the Kayfabe PresidencyRhetoric, Politics and Societyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50551-6_1

1. Introduction

Shannon Bow O’Brien¹  

(1)

University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

Shannon Bow O’Brien

Abstract

This chapter introduces how Donald Trump uses professional wrestling tactics and language to employ a unique manner of going public to the American public. Donald Trump never shifted his rhetoric from campaigning to governance. In a very real sense, he has crafted the truly permanent campaign. It also introduces how he uses social media platforms, like Twitter, to help manufacture his own reality. It provides an overview of all the chapters and explains how they fit together within the book.

Keywords

TrumpManufactured realityOverviewGoing publicPermanent campaign

The Donald Trump presidency is unique in American history. Many people did not expect a real estate developer turned television personality to successfully capture the 2016 election. His brash, controversial, and at times, confrontational statements toward a wide variety of targets have been his hallmark. They have often been targeted toward political opponents, assumed allies, celebrities, and the news media. While unconventional, his campaign and governing style resonated within the American public and energized populist elements. Trump is simultaneously unique and traditional within American political thought. Many of his tactics are well-established and grounded in mid-century research on propaganda and populists. He utilized these ideas in distinctive ways fashioning him into an entirely neoteric creation. Trump, in many ways, epitomizes the ideal populist, but blended with other theatrical elements that morph him into a truly unique occupant in the office of the American president.

Donald Trump has employed well-established presidential tools in completely new approaches in an attempt to build the strongest executive branch in American history. His connection and usage of theatrical tactics to persuade audiences and drive rhetoric are important to better understand his presidential style. Specifically, his connections to professional wrestling and how that medium plays upon its populist roots are key to how he resonates with sections of the American public. Few realize Donald Trump has over a thirty-year history with professional wrestling. Throughout his campaign and presidency, he has employed verbal cues and tactics closely associated with wrestling to make appeals. The unusual dynamics of wrestling allow his language and behavior to motivate certain audiences. Trump has taken their methods and molded them into a highly personalized way of going public. By specifically targeting individuals over institutions, he has weaponized going public in ways no other president has ever dared. He uses social media to tailor verbal assaults and attacks at people, not just policies or ideas. Furthermore, these activities have led toward a shifting of expectations within public space. Through the integration of wrestling rhetorical standards into discourse outside the ring in the broader world, he has allowed for exaggerated behaviors to become more normalized tools for political actors. Donald Trump appears to have embraced Rules for Radicals by targeting people with ridicule, then personalizing attacks to polarize the public (Alinsky 1971). For Trump, going public involves Twitter posts and public verbal declarations that often include overstatements, bravado, and direct messages toward targets. Ouyang and Waterman (2020) look at President Trump’s tweets and astutely access he has used the tool for going directly public (GDP). Their nuance on Kernell’s research offers a perceptive and interesting analysis of the evolving use of social media in presidential communication (Kernell 1997). However, most scholars focus on the institutional level appeals of this tool. That is, the president encourages people to contact Congress to endorse his ideas. President Trump has attempted to expand the power of the executive branch to levels not seen since the Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt administrations. Donald Trump has used going public to target individuals and in that sense, turned it into a weapon. He singles out specific people and turns the wrath or adulation of his supporters upon them. He has taken going public and wielded it as a bludgeon to cull threats and reward perceived allies. Going public has never been utilized in such a targeted way by presidents to force abeyance or compel action.

Donald Trump exploits language in very specific directions. He utilizes the venacular and mannerisms of wrestling to make rhetorical appeals. The parlance of wrestling has impacted the way Donald Trump uses the media, the public, and the office of the presidency. Wrestling has origins in theater which later moved into the circus. Performance exists within enclosed spaces that allows for hyperbolic stories within confined arcs. Trump draws upon its tactics to redefine expectations of spaces to fundamentally change the nature of political expectations and expression. Wrestling is almost always about stories within a confined area. Wrestling exploits its own dramaturgical tendencies to create strongly drawn characters with compressed storylines. Donald Trump appropriates these tools and pulls them out of the confined space of the arena. The emotion of performance supersedes truth or accuracy. Factual exactness matters less than your presentation of the material. As Donald Trump blends performance and public service, social confusion over boundaries has occurred. Theatrical norms when applied to daily life generate vastly different reactions than within the artificial confines of a stadium. It is not simply a muddling of public and private. Rather, it is a jumbling of theatrical and generalized social standards. As a result, these actions have allowed for social confusion of acceptable behavior. He has turned the public forum into a pseudo wrestling stage. It helps create a perception of permissible conduct for embellished language and stereotypes. Taunts, exaggerations, half-truths, and blatant falsehoods are all acceptable within the ring. It is the reaction of the audience, not the action itself that validates the language. Cheering fans function as the barometer for the truth rather than objective standards that gauge accuracy.

Wrestling trades on kayfabe performances. It is a specific term that refers to wrestlers maintaining whatever is happening around them is absolutely real. Antagonisms and grievances are genuine. Situations are reacted to as absolutely candid and sincere. In most circumstances, all events are carefully staged as part of the performance. Wrestlers are not permitted to break character and must maintain the illusion of authenticity at all times in front of cameras or non-insiders to the sport. Many fans understand and appreciate the kayfabe dichotomy within professional wrestling. It gives the wrestlers tacit approval to behave appallingly while allowing their fans to understand it is all part of the show where stereotypes and truths can be aired without repercussions. Donald Trump has utilized these tools of wrestling to craft a presidency where he is allowed to be outrageous and have supporters deflect away criticism. He has to maintain the illusion of absolute control or knowledge.

Trump has not significantly shifted his behaviors between his campaigning and governance. Donald Trump’s activities as a candidate and president deploy practically identical rhetorical devices within both roles. He has never stopped campaign rallies and routinely treats every situation like a publicity event. President Trump seeks to be the source of trusted information for his audience. Page and Shapiro (1992) say responsiveness to new information results from individuals using cognitive shortcuts or rules of thumb, such as reliance upon trusted delegates or reference figures (friends, interest groups, experts, political leaders) to do political reasoning for them and to provide guidance (p. 17). Trump attempts to reframe himself, his business, his actions, and even his own words in ways to always paint himself in a positive light. He presents facts within speeches that have already been mediated or filtered by the Leader (McGee 1975, p. 249) to present a specific reality. Trump wants his supporters to trust his vision and path regardless of its accuracy. Politifact has rated statements by candidate Donald Trump in 2016 as 23% true or generally truthful, with 77% of his statements being false or mostly untrue (Donald Trump’s, 2016). By July 2018, these truthful numbers had slightly increased almost 32% true to half truthful with 70% generally untruthful (Donald Trump’s, 2018). Of the 70%, 48% were rated as either fully false or their lowest rating of pants on fire. These numbers stay consistent through March 2020 with 28% in the general truthful range with 69% scoring a false rating with 48% completely untrue (Donald Trump’s, 2020). These erroneousness proclamations matter because of his influence. Gilens (2001) found that facts have a weak and inconsistent effect on the preferences expressed by the less politically knowledgeable Americans (pp. 391–392). If Trump is pursuing a base that does not invest energy in political information, his opinions have a strong impact on their beliefs. This approach seems to work given a CBS July 2018 poll showing 91% of strong Trump supporters trust he provides accurate information (Americans Wary, 2018). A Pew March 2020 poll finds that by nearly 2-to-1 margin, white evangelicals are more likely than other Americans to say the terms ‘morally upstanding’ and ‘honest’ describe Trump at least ‘fairly well’ (Gjelten 2020). Trump supporters have less trust in societal institutions (Boon et al. 2020) so his opinions carry tremendous weight. Trump disclosed to Leslie Stahl he uses the term fake news and aggressively attacks the media to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you (Schwartz 2018). Considering some research (Barbera et al. 2019) has shown that politicians pay more attention to supporters than the public at large, Trump's blatant distortion makes logical sense. He cultivates distrust in other sources of information while catering to the issues that resonate with his base. Regardless of his broader accomplishments, they gauge him solely upon their pet topics, ignoring the fact he has largely stacked the deck in his favor. When new sources are controlled or cater to the administration, one cannot help but remember propaganda concerns espoused by The New York Times in