In January 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt held a toga-themed birthday party at the White House to mock the accusation that he was an incipient dictator. Donald Trump is doing him one better. The President celebrates his 80th birthday today. As such, his plans for Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts today in an octagon on the South Lawn of the White House are reminiscent of the extravaganzas of the Emperor Commodus, whose rule prompted Gibbon to warn:
Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude.
For America’s semiquincentennial, Trump gave UFC head Dana White permission to construct an arena on the South Lawn of the White House that is known as “The Claw.” The Claw is outfitted with lights, speakers and screens and hovers over the octagon cage itself to ensure that anyone not seated next to it can follow the event. The ringside seats for Trump’s birthday bash are reserved for what Mark Twain liked to refer to as “the quality” – namely, those who are prepared to pony up to $1.5 million to the UFC for a VIP package.
Will Trump’s emphasis on virility and manhood be able to disguise his own physical decline?
Ever the hawkish businessman, Trump has converted today’s spectacle into a money-making venture – a Singaporean cryptocurrency firm is apparently bankrolling it. The logos of the sponsors, including Bud Light and Polymarket, are festooned on the octagon. The tab for the event, including the The Claw, comes in at $60 million. Cui bono?
Around 100,000 spectators are expected to crowd the National Mall to watch the event for free on Jumbotrons. What the cost of refurbishing the trampled grass will amount to has not been disclosed. But it’s already suffering some damage.
On Thursday, Trump received an unusual birthday present in addition to the ones that he has awarded himself: giant etchings, which looked like something out of an Erich von Däniken documentary about extraterrestrials visiting earth, suddenly appeared on the National Mall in the form of dead grass east of the World War Two Memorial: “86 47.” The administration has construed the numbers as a coded attempt to promote the assassination of Trump but the courts have upheld them as a form of free speech. The courts have also been weighing up whether or not to cancel the event itself on the grounds that it’s for profit, but the lawsuit filed by the Public Integrity Projects is likely to be quashed.
The bluenoses who are complaining about the UFC fight as blaspheming the White House grounds are off base. The White House has a long tradition of rumbustious celebrations of American anniversaries. It began in 1801 with Thomas Jefferson who featured dogfights, cockfights and gunfire at the White House to signal a break with the starchy Federalist era.
A year later, Christopher Buckley has reported in his learned study, Washington Schlepped Here, the “Republican Ladies of Cheshire, Massachusetts, sent a 1,200-pound cheese to the president.” By 1837, the cheese weighted 1,400 pounds. It was placed in a White House vestibule where, Buckley writes, “the citizenry shaved and hacked and scooped away at it.” There’s always been a cheesy aspect, you could say, to America’s celebrations of its independence from Great Britain.
The pressing question is whether Trump’s emphasis on virility and manhood will be able to disguise, or at least camouflage, his own physical decline. No doubt his palpable delight at the sight of grown men thrashing each other testifies to his boyish enthusiasms. Trump is also extending his conception of manhood to American diplomacy. On Thursday, the State Department announced that it is forming a partnership with UFC to advance American diplomacy.
This is Trump’s last hurrah. Like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Trump was born in 1946, the very year that Richard M. Nixon and Joseph McCarthy entered Congress. In many ways, Trump is the legatee of the latter two, both in his conception of the imperial pomp and his relish for the bareknuckle brawl. Now, as he heads into the midterm elections, Trump will have to show that, at 80, he still has his mojo.
One augury might be divined in the motorcycle jump that has been planned for this weekend. Nitro Circus stuntman Travis Pastrana has been given the green light to attempt a dirt bike backflip on the South Lawn. If he succeeds, it will be read as a successful gambit. But if he fails, the symbolism for Trump’s last two years as president won’t be hard to detect.
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