Donald Trump is the perfect pro wrestling heel
New World Order -- but for politics.
Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel. It’s here!
There are a lot of ways to try to understand Donald Trump. A lot of lenses to look through to understand a) why he is the way he is and b) why he continues to drive the political conversation in this country.
But, for me, the best way to understand Trump is via professional wrestling.
Now, I am may be somewhat biased — I’ve written before about my own love for wrestling — but I really do think that by understanding the inner workings of pro wrestling, you begin to understand not just the psyche of Donald Trump but his lasting appeal.
Which is why I was intrigued by a new Q and A in Politico with Abraham Josephine Riesman about her new book “Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America.”
There’s a ton of interesting stuff in the interview but one exchange really struck me as true and useful. Here it is (bolding is mine):
Politico: How are Republicans and Democrats both doing politics differently now because they watched Hulk Hogan in the ’80s and ’90s?
Riesman: We learned that the most important thing is entertaining people — basically the most important thing is pushing people’s buttons. And also learning that you can be a heel and be successful — you can be somebody who is hated and you can profit off that hatred.
Politico: Attention above all else, button-pushing over policy-making …
Riesman: And success in being hated. That’s such a key part of the Trump phenomenon. People think that by hating him and tweeting about how bad he is they’re somehow stabbing against him. But that’s the same way that people thought they were making a point of taking down Vince McMahon by buying T-shirts that say “Stone Cold” because “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was Vince’s rival in a storyline. But Vince McMahon owns it. He makes all the money off the T-shirt. That’s what happens with Trump. And not just Trump. George Santos. Any number of politicians. It’s how you succeed now.
Politico: It pays to be the heel just as much or maybe even more than it pays to be “the face.”
Riesman: Oh, I would say much more. Being the face doesn’t pay because you’re always going to have another side that reflexively hates you. You’re not going to win over the other side. Whereas if you’re a heel, you have one side loving you, and the other side you’re profiting off their hatred. It’s the only way to actually make it now.
A brief bit of context for you non-wrestling types. A “face” is a good guy — someone the audience is supposed to root for and love. A “heel” is a bad guy — someone the audience is supposed to boo and hate.
Consider what Riesman is saying here then:
The good guy/face is destined for failure because you inevitably have one side that hates you — no matter what you do or how could you try to be. And that side is against you no matter what you say or do.
The bad guy/heel succeeds because he (or she) understands our true human nature. There are people who will, inevitably, root for the bad guy because they are drawn to his or her lack of concern about traditional rules and mores. And the people who hate the heel will feel so strongly in their hatred that they will act in ways that wind up profiting the heel too!
To truly understand how this works, you have to make sure you get what the goal here is. It’s not winning — at least in the traditional sense. It’s getting attention and/or making money.
The face may have just as good a chance of winning a match — or a presidential race — but likely will get less attention and sell less merchandise along the way.
The heel gets the double whammy: They get attention from the people who love them (and there are always those people) AND from the people who hate them. (If you have ever been to a wrestling match in person — and I have — the boos for the heels are always louder than the cheers for the faces.)
In the attention economy, the heel wins — because the whole game isn’t winning or being loved but rather attracting attention. Attention is the coin of the realm. And the true heel is the one who is minting the coins.
Understand that and you begin to understand Trump.
Trump is the living embodiment of the notion that all press is good press. The key is that he remains at the center of our attention.
I’ve often thought of Trump — to borrow another metaphor — as a sort of comic book villain. He takes in all of the energy — positive and negative — aimed at him and grows stronger from it. (He’s sort of like Rogue — and thanks to the one and only Sonny Bunch for his comic-book knowledge.)
In my mind, the single most telling quote Trump has ever given — in terms of insight into his character and how he views the world — came in 1990 in an interview with Playboy magazine.
“The show is Trump, and it is sold-out performances everywhere,” Trump said describing his life.
He’s never minded being the villain. Or, at minimum, the guy you kind of hate but also kind of envy. That’s his entire public persona! All that matters is that you watch — and maybe spend some money along the way.
Consider this: When Trump had the chance to create a reality TV show, what he came up with was a construct in which he was the domineering boss who, at the end of every episode, fired someone (or someones).
That’s not exactly the thought process of a man who wants to be universally loved! (To do that, Trump would have made a show more like “Undercover Boss.”) It’s how someone who understands their brand — and the heel-ish tendencies of that brand — intimately well thinks.
Trump, for all his assertions about being “your favorite president,” isn’t really driven by the idea of being beloved. He’s fueled by the idea of being relevant — whether you love him or hate him.
And he has a shocking ability to remain relevant. Usually ex-presidents effectively disappear — ceding the stage to the person who succeeds them. Not so Trump.
Here’s Google Trend data on searches for Trump (red) and President Joe Biden (blue) over the last year:
To be clear: Not all of those peaks are good news for Trump! The last spike, for example, is tied to his expected indictment for alleged hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
But, again, that doesn’t matter to Trump! Heel mentality! Heat (aka attention) is all!
Thinking like a heel might explain why Trump claimed that he was going to be indicted earlier this month — when he has, in fact, not been indicted at all just yet.
His pronouncement raised him $1.5 million from supporters in the space of three days and, as importantly to Trump, allowed him to dominate the news cycle.
When you start to think of Trump as a wrestling heel, it all starts to come into clearer focus — including why he ran for president in the first place.
Think back to early 2015. Trump’s run on “The Apprentice” was over. He was aging. He felt like old news to the monied elite of both coasts. He desperately needed another act.
What better way to restore relevancy than run for president? Trump had feinted at bids before, only to back away once he sucked as much attention as possible from them.
But, this time, he went all the way — running a campaign that was clearly aimed as much at marketing himself as it was about winning.
Remember Trump steaks? Trump water? Trump wine?
And what about all the events at Mar a Lago and his other properties? Suddenly “Trump” — and Trump — went from a brand well past its prime to one that was immediately relevant for almost all of America. Everyone was talking about Trump again. He had won!
I will never be convinced that Trump got into the 2016 presidential race for any reason other than to re-vivify his brand. The idea — pushed by his allies in the years since — that he always knew that if he ran he would win is simply not born out by the way in which he ran his campaign (and the reporting coming out of the campaign for its duration.)
Trump as heel also explains why he was so keen to run again in 2024. The worst thing to be in Donald Trump’s world is irrelevant. Or boring. Or yesterday’s news.
What better way to avoid that dubious distinction than to announce you are running for president again weeks after the last election has concluded? You are blindingly relevant — and all talk of the 2024 race (on both sides!) has to go through you!
Understanding Trump is no easy thing. But seeing him as a prototypical wrestling heel gets me closer to “getting” him than anything else that’s come along to date.
Trump steak and water was an amazingly pathetic moment -- but totally on brand.
WWE,
NASCAR,
Trump
I bet there's some crossover of appeal and audiences.
I had a friend years ago when I lived in the mid Atlantic who liked NASCAR. He used to go to the Dover, DE race every year. One year he told me that Trump had been there talking to people in the crowd. My friend said that Trump said he was thinking about running for President. That had to have been 2005 or before. Trump, scoping out the marks for his big con.