The photograph is almost too on-the-nose to qualify as satire. Drone footage of Washington, DC this weekend showed the results of the last few months of Trumpism, an architectural mishmash of pure, unfettered absurdity.
In the foreground is a half-built UFC octagon known as ‘The Claw’, constructed for a fight that supposedly celebrates 250 years of America and will also conveniently fall on Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.
In the middle ground are the half-demolished remains of the East Wing of the White House, alongside a large building site surrounding the “whoops, actually it’s taxpayer-funded!” ballroom Trump decided he just had to have. A federal judge recently stalled its construction but, since the president predicted “death and destruction” if it didn’t continue, we can presume that the ballroom build will resume very soon.
And of course, in the background, barely visible through the debris, is America’s seat of democracy: the White House itself.
Needless to say, it’s an unsubtle metaphor.
The scene manages to capture the governing philosophy of the age in a single frame: politics as entertainment, age-old traditions as disposable, and democracy as background decor for a larger and gaudier plan. Not pictured is the 250ft-tall ‘Arc de Trump’ that the president is currently trying to get signed off as a massive monument along The Mall. That one will come later.
Truly, what better way to celebrate 250 years of America than with 90,000 spectators on the South Lawn, all gathered to watch two oily men tear each other to pieces inside a cage in the name of FREEDOM while we bomb Iran a few thousand miles away? What is America if not violence and lack of mercy, a claw-shaped cage and a lightning dome? And what is the MAGA-led Republican Party itself except a beautiful analog of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, an entertainment spectacle that was founded as a “no-holds-barred” version of the usual sport with only three rules (no eye-gouging, no biting and no fish-hooking)?
The UFC does have a couple more rules these days. For instance, boring bureaucrats have insisted that you really shouldn’t kick your opponent in the head if they’re already grounded on the mat, or pull their hair. But it still retains that beating heart of almost-unfettered violence so beloved by its audience. And nothing says “happy 80th!” quite like two men punching each other in a cage, does it?
If you’re worried you might be excluded from the UFC event, don’t worry: although a lot of the tickets are reserved for White House family members and nebulous “VIPs”, a full third of them are reserved for active military — assuming they fit the ‘central casting’ requirements of the Trump-Hegseth Pentagon. One imagines that anyone who’s done a tour of Afghanistan will be lining up to spend their leisure hours forgetting all that and kicking back to watch two oily men slam each other repeatedly into the ground.
It’s a good way to forget how high gas prices are these days, or how expensive the groceries have gotten, or perhaps even to forget about the Epstein Files. With enough damage to the head, you can forget anything, really.
One imagines the Founding Fathers would be thrilled about all of this — not turning in their graves so much as climbing out of them and immediately fish-hooking one another over whose fault this turned out to be. Sorry to tell you, sirs, that the world’s greatest constitutional experiment has been reduced to FREEDOMLAND, a technicolor theme park where all men are created equally likely to achieve knockout!!! But on the bright side, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Adam Sandler are invited. So sit back, chill out, and just don’t ask about the whole ‘King Trump’ thing, because nobody wants a tantrum on America’s birthday.
“Late-stage capitalism” has become a bit of a social media buzzword over the past few years. But there is surely no better term for converting the seat of government into this bizarre self-parody. As the midterms approach, the construction site at one end of the White House and the huge structure at the other speak uncomfortably about the president’s priorities. Then again, he already told us loud and clear that he doesn’t “care about the midterms” just a few days ago — and when someone tells you something, and that someone is the president of the United States, it really should be incumbent upon you to believe it.
Don’t worry, though: democracy is still there, somewhere in the background. You just have to squint past the rubble and the octagon to see it.
