Only the hackiest screenwriter imaginable would script America’s decline this way.
Think of it: On the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding, America’s increasingly senescent president turned the White House lawn into a tacky, bloody gladiatorial arena while capitulating to Iran. Mike Judge came close to imagining some elements of our debasement in his 2006 satire “Idiocracy,” which depicts a United States led by a professional wrestler whose middle name is Mountain Dew. But if “Idiocracy” captured something of the vibe of Donald Trump’s reign, it was both too early and too lighthearted to nail the sordid specifics, which on Sunday included the fighter Josh Hokit, standing in an octagonal cage wrapped in crypto ads, calling the former first lady Michelle Obama a man.
It is, to be sure, a good thing that the war in Iran appears to be over. Once Trump had dragged America into a quagmire, there was no prospect of ending the debacle on beneficial terms. Contrary to the caterwauling of Iran hawks, the deal Trump reached isn’t the problem — it’s simply a tacit acknowledgment of a defeat that was already baked in. Still, it marks a moment of American ignominy.
“The fact that the strongest, the mightiest military power in the world, in cooperation with the mightiest intelligence agency in the world — Israel’s — were not able to achieve any of their strategic objectives against a third-rate regional power is quite stunning,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group.
Details of the “memorandum of understanding” between the United States and Iran are still emerging; the White House has said the text will be released in a day or two. But it appears that its main accomplishment will be to open the Strait of Hormuz, which of course was open before the war. There’s been no nuclear agreement. Reports suggest Iran has not had to give up its ballistic missile program or its support for proxies like Hezbollah. The beleaguered Iranian people have not, perhaps needless to say, been freed from their awful rulers.
Though Vice President JD Vance has said Iran could have access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund, it’s not clear what that will look like, or whether Iran might use its control of the Strait to collect some sort of toll. But by demonstrating its power to withstand American bombing while putting a chokehold on the global economy, it’s achieved a level of deterrence it previously lacked. “Iran is not likely to take seriously that the U.S. would return to war, certainly before the U.S. midterms,” wrote Daniel Shapiro, Barack Obama’s ambassador to Israel, on social media. “So that means we will be conducting diplomacy without a credible threat of force.”
It probably wasn’t a coincidence that the memorandum of understanding was finalized while Ultimate Fighting Championship cage matches were fought at the White House. In addition to marking the nation’s quarter of a millennium, the U.F.C. extravaganza was meant to celebrate Trump’s 80th birthday. Both Iran and some Democrats suspected he wanted to get the Iran deal done in time for the occasion. And Trump might have hoped that the event — which at one point had a Marine Corps honor guard onstage with ring girls in sparkly red hot pants and a human-size Monster Energy Drink can — would help lure back some of the young men disillusioned by both his war and his mishandling of the economy.
Maybe it will work. Joe Rogan, the podcast host who has been increasingly critical of Trump in recent months, agreed to serve as an announcer. The Wall Street Journal reported on one excited fan who drove seven hours in the hope of seeing Trump’s pageant and said, “It’s like the Colosseum in real life.” To America’s founders, the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire was a cautionary tale. To parts of MAGA, it’s apparently aspirational.
But to everyone else, the confluence of America’s failure in Iran and Trump’s Temu colosseum should paint a clear picture of decadence, rot and weakness trying to conceal itself behind macho kitsch. This is an administration capable of immense, epic destruction, but unable to create much besides spectacle.
The conservative writer Marc Thiessen tried to depict Trump’s lurid festival as a sign of his demotic spirit, opening the White House to the sort of people who go to motocross rallies and monster truck shows. “If you’re offended by that, you may be an elitist snob,” he wrote. Put aside, for a moment, the fact that Thiessen once clucked that Barack Obama was failing to maintain “presidential dignity.” By this standard — that U.F.C. brawls, which John McCain once called “human cockfighting,” belong in the White House because lots of Americans like them — there can be no standards. Like Ultimate Fighting, porn is extremely popular, but I somehow doubt Thiessen would defend a Democratic president who invited a bunch of OnlyFans creators to the Oval Office while he was losing a war.
It’s tempting to mention bread and circuses here, except there’s no bread. On the contrary, Trump and his allies monetized Sunday’s program. In March, Trump obtained shares in the U.F.C.’s parent company. And to watch the show, members of the public needed a subscription to Paramount+, controlled by the Trump ally David Ellison, who bought CBS and then made it friendlier to the administration. Rather than a gift to his restive base, the event was another example of the administration selling America for parts.
In the lead-up to the fight, the U.F.C.’s Derrick Lewis — who’d later be knocked out by Hokit — told The Journal he felt that he was participating in something historic. “This is one of the events they’ll be talking about 100 years from now,” he said. He could be right, but not in the way he thinks.
Someday, someone might write — or, more likely, film — an American version of Edward Gibbon’s “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Its maker will want to include a scene of the 92-foot steel claw towering over the White House while somewhere inside the building, people scrambled to figure out how to sell as a foreign policy disaster as a great victory.
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