Bread and Circuses?

Trump hosted a spectacle on the White House lawn the other day. A UFC event, replete with military jet flyover and other glitz, with 4300 close-up attendees and space for another 85,000 near by. The event, billed as part of the nation’s semiquincentennial (had to look it up) anniversary - yes, that’s 250 years of ‘Murica!!! - drew the expected reactions divided along the expected lines.

Mostly.

I saw some condemnations that I “sensed” were based on the fact that the event was UFC. That’s “Ultimate Fighting Championship,” which is a mixed martial art (MMA) fighting professional organization. Along the lines of Major League Baseball, the National Football League, or the National Basketball Association. UFC, headed by its over-the-top boss Dana White, has a reputation that is more professional wrestling than professional football (aka the No Fun League), despite professional wrestling being a staged and scripted entertainment format while MMA is genuine athletic competition.

Because UFC bouts, despite being as real as a heart attack, are promoted with pro-wrestling-style hype and with an eye to rivalries and exaggerated back stories, there’s a disdain for UFC, both among the coastal elites, who deem it “red-state” chum, and among older Republicans, who may sniff in disdain at the “impurity” of the marketing and puffery.

Such disdain suggests a broader disdain for what is derogatorily dubbed “middle America,” or ‘Murica!” as I noted in the opening paragraph. This is a shame, because America was meant from its inception to be a classless, egalitarian society. It’s not surprising that those born of ivied academia and blue-blood wealth would look down at the people who sweat for a living, but we all know they suck, and everyone else should know better.

Some might argue that UFC is a particularly barbaric sport, but if we roll back to last century, boxing was among the biggest sports in the country - and at times in the world. The upper crust of society would attend, ringside, in tuxedoes. Bouts would be hyped for months. Larger-than-life characters would be front-page news. Everyone knew the big names. Ali. Louis. Sugar Ray (Robinson and Leonard). Foreman. Frazier. Tyson. Duran. Pacquiao. Mayweather. And more. The NFL, as brutal and injury-rife as it is, remains the nation’s most popular sport. Baseball has become a sport where pitchers routinely require surgery at ever-younger ages. Don’t get me started on hockey.

The “barbaric” argument feels like a deflection and an excuse.

I’ve no objection to anyone saying “not my cup of tea.” It’s not mine, either, and I’d be hard-pressed to name more than two MMA fighters. That’s not the same as dismissing the sport or deriding the White House event.

Was it loud and brash and tacky?

Guess what? So is America. That’s not a bad thing.

My alma mater was located in Troy, NY, the home town of Uncle Sam. Yeah, the guy, eventually festooned in red, white, and blue, who “wants you!”

I grew up a stone’s throw from New York Harbor, and had a beautiful, unimpeded view of the Verrazzano Bridge from my bedroom window. I recall, fondly and vividly, the “tall ships” parade that was part of the 1976 Bicentennial celebration.

I also recall Brooklyn being a fireworks war zone every Independence day from my youth through my twenties, as we raucously celebrated the nation’s birth with an ever-expanding array of “Class-C explosives,” illegal in New York but readily available to any kid who spent more than 5 minutes trying... and later, any adult who drove the streets of Chinatown in June, where every other corner had some teen muttering “fireworks… fireworks…”

Loud and brash and tacky.

Sounds like a certain President.

Say what you want about Trump, but there’s no denying he is unabashedly pro-America. Since so much that passes for policy among his opponents and haters is “embrace the opposite of whatever he says or does,” that drives them to being reflexively anti-American. Even more anti-American than they were before he got (re)elected.

Among them are the 1619 crowd, the “America is uniquely evil” crowd, and more recently the “capitalism is the source of all the world’s ills” crowd. That these folks sound a lot like the mad mullahs who call America “The Great Satan” is lost on them, for sure. That they are taking up common cause with the totalitarian religious fanatics in the Middle East is also lost on them.

I do not intend to “guilt-by-association” the more normal folks who are put off by Trump or his tacky 250th celebrations, but I do suggest that they consider their disdain might be mis-motivated. Don’t let animus for the current occupant of the White House dampen your enthusiasm for the greatness that is America.

Remember that the government and the nation are not one and the same.

I will write it again.

The government and the nation are not one and the same.

The people who represent us change every couple years. The nation may evolve over time, but America remains the greatest nation on Earth, for many reasons. I defy anyone to point to a better one. And, I challenge the “great Satan” types to the cliche “gotcha” question: if it sucks so much, why haven’t you left? If your answer is “I want to fix it,” why are you trying to make it like all the nations that are worse?

Remember also that America does not have to be perfect to be feted. No one is perfect. I am not perfect. You are not perfect. Yet there are people who love you and think you a good person despite your imperfections. We can and should always strive for improvement, in both ourselves and in our nation - good can always be better - but we don’t have to proclaim hatred of either in order to do so.

The disdain for the White House UFC event signals a broader disdain for all things middle-America. I don’t mean that just geographically - I mean that culturally. It’s no different from mocking Waffle House or Buc’ees or Walmart or “flyover country.” And because middle America is stereotypically pro-American, it hints at a general anti-America attitude.

Which we already knew about the Left. That’s never going to change. They revel in and thrive on their disdain for all that they consider “beneath them.” The exist to feel superior, even to the “oppressed” they purport to champion, but actually treat like pets or like exhibits in a zoo.

It’s the other “sniffers” that are bothersome. Again, don’t let Trump’s “rah-rah, ‘Murica!” taint your own admiration for the nation. Don’t let fear of someone judgmental jackass calling you a MAGA change your behavior.

Finally, ask why “’Murica!” is considered low, while everything progressive or woke or forward thinking is supposed to be respected?