Kayfabe

Although the etymology of the word is a matter of debate, for at least 50 years “kayfabe” has referred to the unspoken contract between wrestlers and spectators: We’ll present you something clearly fake under the insistence that it’s real, and you will experience genuine emotion. Neither party acknowledges the bargain, or else the magic is ruined.

[...]

The aesthetic of World Wrestling Entertainment seems to be spreading from the ring to the world stage. Ask an average Trump supporter whether he or she thinks the president actually plans to build a giant wall and have Mexico pay for it, and you might get an answer that boils down to, “I don’t think so, but I believe so.” That’s kayfabe. Chants of “Build the Wall” aren’t about erecting a structure; they’re about how cathartic it feels, in the moment, to yell with venom against a common enemy.

Voting to repeal Obamacare again and again only to face President Obama’s veto was kayfabe. So is shouting “You lie!” during a health care speech. It is President Bush in a flight suit, it is Vladimir Putin shirtless on a horse, it is virtually everything Kim Jong-un does. Does the intended audience know that what they’re watching is literally made for TV? Sure, in the same way they know that the wrestler Kane isn’t literally a demon. The factual fabrication is necessary to elicit an emotional clarity.

[...]

Donald Trump rode kayfabe from Queens to Trump Tower to “The Apprentice” to the White House. Alex Jones may find it is as effective in the courtroom as it is on AM radio. Cultural elites can fact-check these men and point out glaring rhetorical contradictions until they are blue in the face; kayfabe renders it all beside the point.

Notes:

Folksonomies: politics rhetoric perspective

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Donald Trump (0.920962): dbpedia_resource
President of the United States (0.841979): dbpedia_resource
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 How Wrestling Explains Alex Jones and Donald Trump
Periodicals>Newspaper Article:  Rogers, Nick (April 25, 2017), How Wrestling Explains Alex Jones and Donald Trump, Retrieved on 2018-10-31
  • Source Material [www.nytimes.com]
  • Folksonomies: politics rhetoric reality tv