UFC fight can't hide MAGA male weakness

UFC fight can’t hide MAGA male weakness
Calling Michelle Obama a “man” won't make up for losing the Iran war

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published June 17, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) Above all things, the Ulitmate Fighting Championship spectacle on the White House lawn on Sunday was Donald Trump’s birthday present to himself. The self-proclaimed “Greatest President in History” once again reminded the public that the only record he’ll set is in White House corruption, using the fight both to line his own pockets and enrich his billionaire benefactors. But if the 80-year-old was hoping that proximity to half-naked men punching each other would make him look more robust and virile, the opposite happened. Despite the dramatic music and his ever-thickening foundation application, Trump looked frail and his ever-present hand bruise was hard to ignore, despite the efforts to cover it with makeup.

The painful event was an almost too-perfect symbol of the larger problem infecting Trump’s White House: it’s run by men obsessed with looking tough, but who are, in actuality, weak and incompetent. The more they fail, the more they grasp for these theatrical but ineffectual displays of masculine preening, hoping that the public mistakes loud and violent displays for strength. This may fool the hardcore MAGA base into perpetuity, but increasingly, it’s becoming evident to everyone else that all the chest-pounding theatrics are just a cover to conceal the weakness that defines MAGA manhood.

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The UFC fight exemplified MAGA’s false understanding of what strength actually looks like. Yes, the guys in the cage can punch really hard and knock each other out. But, as I noted in my video response to watching the fight, the event was a pitch-perfect illustration of how fragile traditional, right-wing masculinity really is. These men live in what appears to be daily terror that the slightest misstep — getting caught cooing over a kitten or shaking their hips to a Beyoncé tune — will emasculate them. The over-the-top violence is a grasping effort to stave off this fear. Hyperbolic dominance displays function as a baby’s blanket, a totem to cling to in order to self-soothe over the ever-present threat that someone, somewhere, might call them “gay.”

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Mistaking this sexist weakness for toughness is a common problem in MAGA. So is confusing violence with strength. That’s how Trump lost the war with Iran. He and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth loudly and repeatedly insisted that defeating Iran would be easy because the U.S. has bigger weapons. Never mind that this theory of war failed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. The MAGA concept of manhood is so tied up in these childish views about violence and domination that they are incapable of learning anything. Learning is itself viewed with suspicion, as an emasculating enterprise best avoided for more punching and bragging. .....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/06/17/ufc-fight-cant-hide-maga-male-weakness/