When I was a kid, they started showing US wrestling on ITV in a slot where, previously, there'd been some sport. I was young. It probably took me about 15 minutes, after thinking it looked a bit odd,to figure out that this wasn't sport.
I never got into wrestling. In fact, I hated it. I still hate it. I really hate it. So we're clear.
Initially, being a kid, I thought "these people are so dumb! Don't they realise it's fake? Why are they watching it and getting so into it?"
I found everything about it so ugly - the costumes, the movements, the hairstyles, the dialogue. I still do.
I've come to accept the great skill, flair and physical resilience of the participants is not to be sniffed at. It is no coincidence that many have gone on to have very successful action-comedy film careers.
And I know that lots of all sorts of people love it, and they'd tell me I'm being uptight and missing the joke, and all the kitsch and fakeness and silliness is exactly the point and the joy of it.
I remember, a bit older than when I first watched it, looking at the huge crowds baying for drama and for blood and thinking "Do they really all get it? I guess they do, I guess there's a level of sophistication here in their mass consciousness and participation that I am not capable of. My inability to enjoy this on any level reflects, in some way, on my own imaginative shortcomings."
Anyway, I was reminded of the wrestling crowds watching Trump fans up in arms (liderally) on CNN this week. Reminded of it because I guess there are a lot of the same people.
All of it is bullshit, everything they're saying, everything they think, everything they're doing. It's so ugly and it's so bullshit. And there's this mass consciousness to it, where it exists in an area where the truth that an individual thinks just doesn't matter. Probably loads of them know somewhere within themselves that it's bullshit, probably some of them don't. None of them really care.
The crowds at wrestling glorified in being extras in the spectacle. The Trumpists are the same. There's something quite sophisticated going on at some level, within all the lies and idiocy and plain evil.
The difference is, I suppose, there was no "higher cause" to the mindset at the wrestling - it was enjoyment, entertainment, participation. Republicans have the higher causes of hating liberalism, of guns, of god, of pro-life, amongst many others. The end justifies the mental gymnastics.
I guess, what I mean is that, watching them talking and enacting their fury, it doesn't feel real - the man they believe in is so preposterous, the extent of the lies so ludicrous, they seem like actors, part of a grand situationist prank, which I suppose is a bit like how I see wrestling.
Anyway, there it is, wrestling has caused Trump. Hope that's sorted.
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