In Idiocracy (2006), a savage satire that imagines life in the United States in 2505 after centuries of dysgenics and collective dumbing-down, the country’s president is a retired professional wrestler who mounts the floor of Congress to deliver the State of the Union address to pounding hard-rock music and ultimately presides over a sadistic, idiotic version of a fight in a Roman circus.
The film, criticized on its release as being too offensive, was a flop, but over the past two decades its cultural status has grown among a rising number of viewers who see prophetic qualities in it and keep recommending it, especially each time Donald Trump has won an election.
The image of a mixed martial arts octagon installed on the South Lawn of the White House for a bout, held to mark the Republican president’s 80th birthday, has in recent days led to a surge in references to the film on social media. It even prompted Jack White, perhaps the country’s most influential rocker, to write on his Instagram that “America achieves total ‘Idiocracy.’”
Trump has no background as a fighter, but he does have a long history as a promoter of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), the league dedicated to MMA, a mix of disciplines including jiu-jitsu, boxing and muay thai. He scheduled its fights when he owned a casino in Atlantic City, and this Sunday, Flag Day, he did the same at the White House with an evening that kicked off celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the United States’ Declaration of Independence.
It was an event drenched in testosterone staged to Trump’s greater glory, designed to project a dynamic image amid debate about his mental and physical health on the day he entered his ninth decade. There were serious doubts that weather would spoil that rite of passage with a “severe storm” forecast, but the system coming from Virginia finally passed by without incident.
It was an unprecedented evening in every sense, with UFC commentators broadcasting from one of the White House’s green-walled, nineteenth-century–style rooms and the South Lawn occupied by a structure with an arch nearly 30 meters high, lit with LED lights, and a cage plastered with corporate logos, including Truth, Trump’s social network. There, 14 fighters traded punches, knees, and kicks for more than four hours.
Trump left the Oval Office looking tired shortly after 8.20 p.m. A little more than two hours had passed since the president announced that the United States and Iran had reached a preliminary agreement to end the war. It is a pact he will struggle to sell as anything other than a capitulation to extract himself from a mess he created and that has caused him serious popularity problems in an election year.
He was accompanied by UFC chief executive Dana White, an old friend. Both walked to the fight to the sound of fanfare at first and then the metal song Let the Bodies Hit the Floor, through the presidential portrait gallery toward the arena. They were met by the 4,300 guests invited to the show. A detachment of Washington’s honor guards welcomed them, holding aloft the flags of their services.
The announcer said over the loudspeakers: “Please welcome the President of the United States to UFC Freedom 250,” as the event has been named for the country’s birthday commemoration, and singer Zac Brown, squeezed into a tight-striped suit, sang the national anthem while 12 Thunderbird jets performed a theatrical “super delta” formation flyover of the White House.
The crowd began chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A.!”, a chant the audience repeated after the second K.O., and the president and White walked to the front row, where first lady Melania Trump and other family members awaited, while the announcer, voicing a widespread sentiment, said: “I’ve seen surreal things in my life, but this is the most surreal.”
The idea was reinforced by the sight of fighters — among them Americans, French-Brazilians and a Georgian-Spanish fighter, Ilia Topuria — emerging from an uncommon locker room: the White House. Seeing them come out of the presidential residence made it impossible not to feel a pang of sacrilege in a country that prides itself, with the innocent air of still being a young nation, on the purported exceptionalism of its institutions. All of them walked to the ring flanked by members of the armed forces, and a boxer, Britain’s Tyson Fury, entered wearing a cap that called for Trump to be made prime minister of the United Kingdom.
The network that held the broadcast exclusive is owned by the Ellisons, other close friends of Trump. They made a tidy profit this Sunday. The fight could only be viewed behind a $8.99 subscription paywall, or in cinemas across the country that screened it (tickets $27.99). In the stands, David Ellison, the heir to the empire, was seen speaking with the president, as was Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.
Giant screens
About 85,000 people followed the spectacle on the giant screens in the Ellipse, a park adjacent to the White House where Trump previously gave the rally that preceded the assault on the Capitol. They had won tickets in a lottery, and many arrived hours early.
There were Mike and Doug, who had come from Pennsylvania because they personally know, or so they said, one of the fighters, the redhead Bo Nickal, who won his bout by K.O. and leapt from the cage to pay his respects to Trump. He later thanked the Republican in an interview with White for being a “special person” and for having “the balls to do this.” There were more MAGA nods, although none as offensive and out of place as when Josh Hokit, a heavyweight known for his mouth, shouted after winning: “Michelle Obama is a man!”
Downtown was cordoned off for the occasion, and spectators streamed down Constitution Avenue to reach the Ellipse, forming an uncommon tide of people in the city. Young, shirtless, gym-bodied men predominated, and the usual accoutrements of mass gatherings in the U.S. were on display: individuals with megaphones and signs urging the crowd to repent and embrace God, and those protesting the show, like Joseph Tiernan, who defiantly held a sign reading: “Welcome to the great and beautiful capital of the nation, a place far better than the shitty Republican states you happen to live in.”
Among attendees, there seemed to be more UFC fans than Trump die-hards, although the two often overlap, as in the case of 19-year-old Chase Lent, who had traveled from Atlanta with his girlfriend, Caroline Levin. Both voted Republican in 2024, but he said they are now disillusioned “by all the promises he has broken.”
Once through security, seven fights awaited them, organized by weight class and announced by two ring girls in miniskirts, Chrissy Blair and Red Dela Cruz, known as the “Octagon Girls.”
All the fights featured violent choreography, with kicks to the face and punches and elbows thrown at bloody fighters on the mat. It’s a spectacle that delights a global audience. Everything indicates that this Sunday that audience grew, thanks to the unusual setting and the interest aroused by anything Trump does or says — the most famous person in the world — who on this occasion did not open his mouth.
If he returned to the White House a little more than a year ago it was in part thanks to the support of this fan base: young men were decisive in his electoral victory, and White lent him all his influence to achieve it. This Sunday he returned the favor, although the U.S. president also benefited: Trump, who has long been known for opportunism bordering on corruption, is a shareholder in TKO, the parent company of the UFC.
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