New analysis from The New Republic this week highlights the UFC’s deep links to Donald Trump — and conservative extremism more broadly. The influential mixed martial arts (MMA) organization, Sam Eagan writes, “is betting that it can leverage right-wing politics to become a massive sports organization. Trump, meanwhile, has embraced it as an extension of his own brash and violent brand — and as a means of reaching young men.”
The implications of the UFC’s pivot rightward go beyond the 2024 presidential election.
The UFC, and MMA in general, has long attracted right-wing fans. “Extremists have used the sport’s counter-culture mystique to entice and radicalize disenfranchised young men and to provide them a shared space to spread their ideology,” journalist Karim Zidan argues in his Sports Politika newsletter. “They have also used the sport to whitewash their activities and normalize their existence, primarily through interweaving themselves into local fight scenes and culture.” Now Trump is looking to take advantage.
But the implications of the UFC’s pivot rightward go beyond the 2024 presidential election and highlight a larger Western crisis of masculinity. The language of “alpha” MMA fighters like Sean Strickland is deeply familiar to anyone who has spent time studying men’s rights activists and “incel” culture. Trump’s rhetoric mimics many of these ideas too — from the notorious recording in which he appeared to brag about sexually assaulting women, to the talking points he espouses about “family, freedom and God,” to his endorsement of “law and order,” his anti-immigrant messaging and his vow to “stop” gender-affirming care for minors.
The common thread here is insecurity, specifically the insecurity of men anxious about their place in the world. Traditionally white and patriarchal structures are having to evolve and adapt thanks to things like more women in positions of power, declining birth rates, marriage…
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