In this punchy documentary, satirist Munya Chawawa steps into the ring to trash-talk Trump’s obsession with apeing the world of WrestleMania. The result? A bodyslam.
Chawawa takes the not-new but certainly underused idea that Trump and his team’s campaigns and style of government use the same playbook as that created by the US pro-wrestling industry’s most famous promoters, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). WWE was founded by Vince McMahon and his since-estranged wife, Linda. Vince resigned from various business roles in 2024 in the wake of allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault (he has vigorously denied these allegations). Linda is now the US secretary of education.
The pages of the playbook most heavily annotated by Trump and his people – if not ripped from it entirely – concern hyperbole, smack talk and kayfabe. The first two are largely self-explanatory and are evident in just about every Trumpian utterance. Everything – including and especially the president himself – is the biggest and the best. Except, of course, if it’s the worst. The world is divided into clear heroes (white Americans) and villains (non-American, non-white Americans), as they are divided into “Babyfaces” (good guys who play by the rules) and “Heels” (who aren’t and don’t) in fights.
But it’s kayfabe that is the key to Trump’s success. Kayfabe, in wrestling, is the pretence that everything is real – that the invective is unscripted, that the Heels’ and heroes’ backstories are authentic, that the moves are unchoreographed, and that the bodyslams, hip checks and chokeholds are as dangerous and painful as they look. For as long as the fight lasts, you live the illusion. Nothing is true except what you are told you see.
Take kayfabe and its blurring of the lines between truth and lies out of the wrestling bubble and put it on the political stage, however, and the size and depth of the problems it creates become – have become – terrifying. Chawawa speaks to Maga folk who can call Trump a “blue collar billionaire” without batting an eyelid – a sign of the astonishing power he has to warp the senses, collapse contradictions and reconstruct a reality that suits him better.
Chawawa interviews former Trump campaign adviser Sam Nunberg, who says that they were indeed informed by Trump’s love of the world of wrestling – especially its “combative storylines” – as they prepared his approach. Should politics be entertaining, wonders Chawawa. Yes, says Nunberg with certainty. Is it the best version of politics we’re witnessing now? Nunberg keeps his counsel, though he calls himself “No special pleader for January 6. That was a bad day for America.”
