WASHINGTON DC – Among the seemingly limitless array of political analysts proffering their opinions about the state of the US presidential race, Mark Calaway does not loom large. But if Donald Trump wins a return to the White House, Mr Calaway – better known to Americans as “The Undertaker”, reputedly the greatest American professional wrestler of all time – may have uniquely identified the reason for the former president’s renaissance.
Sitting alongside Trump last weekend for a recording of wrestling podcast Six Feet Under, “The Undertaker” asserted: “I know you’ve got that tough-guy persona, that bravado….but you know what you’ve done? You’ve made politics fun again.” Trump, with a smile on his face, nodded “yeah”, as his 6’7” host endorsed the former president’s return to the Oval Office.
“The Undertaker” argued that America’s voters “look at politics like a wrestling story”, and suggested they “can’t separate reality” when it comes to Trump’s pugilistic contest with Vice President Kamala Harris. He may be onto something: polls show Trump eroding Harris’ advantage as Americans continue to be gripped by his antics.
On Saturday, Trump provoked uproar by delivering what CBS News starchily described as “unusual and vulgar remarks” about the late golfing legend Arnold Palmer. At a rally in Pennsylvania in Palmer’s hometown of Latrobe, Trump veered off script to describe the hometown hero as “all man…when he took showers with other pros, they came out there and they said ‘Oh my God, that’s unbelievable’”. The rally also saw Trump describe Harris as “a shit Vice President…Kamala, you’re fired”.
Reacting to those comments, Democrats clutched their pearls and insisted they were the latest example of cognitive decline that should disqualify Trump from the presidential race. But the former president had yet more “fun”, as “The Undertaker” describes it, up his sleeve.
During his Sunday appearance at a Pennsylvania branch of McDonald’s, Trump manned the chip-fryer, and serve bags of Big Macs and fries to hand-picked supporters via the restaurant’s drive-through window. The stunt was designed to poke holes in Harris’s claim that she briefly worked at McDonald’s as a university student, a rite of passage for many young Americans earning one of their first pay cheques. But her campaign has provided no substantiation for the claim, and the company’s personnel records do not include all employees dating back to the 1980s.
“I’ve now worked at McDonald’s for 15 minutes more than Kamala,” Trump told reporters as he shook hot oil from a portion of French fries and packed them in the company’s universally recognised containers. As Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post enthusiastically dubbed him the nation’s “Commander in Beef”, Democrats assailed Trump for lying about their candidate’s record. But the damage was already done, with one opinion writer for The Arizona Republic claiming that “Trump went to McDonald’s and fried Kamala Harris’s campaign to a crisp”.
The “fun” continued at the Knockout Barbershop in the Bronx, New York, where Trump appeared at a small meeting with black male voters hosted by Fox News. With former president Barack Obama expressing public concern that black men are insufficiently supporting Harris due to misogyny, Trump made a naked effort to try and prove that he is more attuned to their concerns.
Gowned customers asked him about his plans for the economy, about his record in office cutting government red tape, and even about one voter’s concern relating to the availability of nutritious food in some parts of the country. Where Obama had challenged the “brothers” to set their concerns about Harris aside, Trump characterised himself as one of them. “You guys are the same as me,” the scion of New York real estate told his audience of minority voters, without a hint of irony. “I know you people so well without knowing you,” he insisted.
On Monday, Trump was back in “action man” mode, visiting communities ravaged by Hurricane Helene. His tour created an uncomfortable split-screen moment on the nation’s news channels, as Trump visited areas still struggling to overcome the storm’s consequences while Harris hosted an unadventurous town hall meeting in Pennsylvania flanked by former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney whose anxiety about the election’s outcome was etched onto a somewhat glum face.
Cheney insisted the election gives voters “an opportunity to tell the whole world who we are…we’re gonna reject cruelty, we’re gonna reject the kind of vile vitriol we have seen from Donald Trump, we’re gonna reject the kind of misogyny that we’ve seen from Donald Trump”. At the very same moment in North Carolina, Trump was lying repeatedly about the White House record delivering aid to the state, but was openly pledging to make America “better, more beautiful and a more joyful place”.
Donald Trump, the apostle of fun and joy? “The Undertaker” thinks that if he remains in that mode for another two weeks, the former president will have the Oval Office in the bag.
