Opinion: MMA Need Not Support Donald Trump
Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.
Take a look back in mixed martial arts history at Genki Sudo’s post-fight celebrations. The cerebral “Neo-Samurai” would raise a flag sporting many other nations’ flags, with bold text that read, “We are All One.”
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Trump’s absurd quotes are proving the American political process to be more pro-wrestling promo theater than anything reflecting a democratic election. Yet he currently leads the bewildered field of Republican nominees. Trump enjoys unsurprising support from the “telling it like it is” lowest common denominator. In MMA, that crowd includes UFC President Dana White, PED cheat and money laundering real estate fraud Chael Sonnen and the man that once compared working for the Ultimate Fighting Championship to slavery: Tito Ortiz.
Trump’s popularity is the racist, misogynist, Islamophobic, climate
change-denying id on steroids.
One of Trump’s adversaries, Ted Cruz, has reality TV’s Phil
Robertson, of “Duck Dynasty,” at his rallies saying “we have to rid
the earth of” homosexuality; Cruz can’t put forth such extreme
views directly, so he touts them via trashy celebrity proxy. Cruz
condones those statements by praising Robertson for being a “voice
of truth” immediately after but not by acknowledging what was said.
Cruz assumes far less political risk that way. The difference
between Cruz and Trump is that the frontrunner is the reality TV
trash celebrity himself -- a deplorable character willing to say
anything, no matter how ignorant, to dominate the conversation.
A quick recap: Trump plans a “total” ban on Muslims entering the United States and creating a database of those already here. He said undocumented Mexican immigrants are largely rapists and murderers. He accused Fox News commentator Megyn Kelly of being menstrual because she broached his previous poor track record with women. He also said black youths have “no spirit” and “have never done more poorly.” He mocked a disabled journalist. Need I go on? Trump talks in such troubling broad strokes because he exists outside the political norm and inside the cult-of-personality social media sound bite world. That world has intersected with MMA.
White told TMZ Sports point blank that, “Donald will get my vote.” The UFC head honcho reasoned Trump has always been a backer and he intends to return the favor.
The problem with White’s declaration for Trump is that the UFC boss has had his own well-publicized run-ins with hate speech for which he has had to apologize. Why come out and support America’s current pound-for-pound leader in hate speech? Fighters can Tweet about their dissatisfaction that White would in any way co-sign a Trump presidential bid built on such alarming generalizations and direct attacks, but that’s hardly a drop in the bucket. There is no concrete way currently for fighters to align and hold White accountable -- whether it’s for supporting a presidential candidate running on hate speech that affects them or for saying something like a female fighter looks like Wanderlei Silva in a dress and heels.
MMA’s lack of representation in that sense allows White’s comments to go unchecked. He has every right to support whichever candidate he chooses. However, the UFC president -- or the president of any company for that matter, especially one with an international profile -- supporting Trump publically invites damaging conclusions because Trump’s popularity is based on anti-inclusive trends. For example, as reported by The Washington Post, data from the Presidential Election Panel Survey found: “Trump performs best among Americans who express more resentment toward African-Americans and immigrants and who tend to evaluate whites more favorably than minority groups.” Recent polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina support that report and go further off logical base with their hate.
Encouraging a candidate doesn’t mean that you advocate all of his or her positions, but with Trump, backing him assumes too much risk that one is in line with venomous policies he purports to enact if elected: unconstitutional databases, mass deportations, etc. It cannot be separated that Trump’s hate toward marginalized groups is why he’s winning. It’s troubling that White, with his position in the sport and major media platforms, put forth the idea that Trump is a worthwhile vote. It’s the political equivalent of declaring to everyone the world is flat. It’s wrong because it’s based on fear rather than fact.
The one word to describe Trump’s run is “courage,” Sonnen said in an interview with Fox Sports. Memory recalls Sonnen’s ascent to top-contender status at middleweight as the allusive race-baiter gunning for then-champion Anderson Silva, an Afro-Brazilian. Sonnen said Silva “jigs,” scapegoated something he said as a “Hispanic” despite audio proof it was Sonnen, called Jon Jones “boy” in a poem and asked African-American ESPN anchor Sage Steele, while promoting the Jones fight, if he could touch her hair rather than answer her question. Point blank: Sonnen lauds Trump’s “courage” for taking his racist character beyond where Sonnen took his own.
As if MMA couldn’t embarrass itself further, Ortiz expressed his support for Trump to Houston’s “In The Loop” on SportsRadio 10. Ortiz carries the American and Mexican flags together in a unified manner as he approaches the cage for his fights, so supporting the candidate who plans to construct a Berlin Wall-style divide between the United States and Mexico is absolutely asinine.
According to a New York Times article in which the reporter spoke with Trump’s black friends, his candidate persona does not necessarily reflect his personal character. That doesn’t excuse that his persona is still debasing. Strikeforce attraction and former USFL and NFL star running back Herschel Walker told the Times, “I don’t think Donald is against Muslims, or blacks, or Hispanics,” while adding, “I do know he is going to try to make this country safe.”
The safety trope pumped up by Trump and his supporters empowers the idea that Americans can’t be safe in a world where minority groups have the same freedoms or rights white adult males do. Former heavyweight boxing champion and avid UFC supporter Mike Tyson, a friend to White and Trump, defended Trump to TMZ Sports, saying every president has offended some group. He’s right to illustrate that Trump wouldn’t be the first president to act against one or many groups in America. However, it’s precisely because of the historical precedent that has seen American presidents preside over massacres of native peoples, place Japanese-Americans in internment camps and deny citizens the right to Habeas corpus that Trump’s proposals should be recognized for being a threat to democracy rather than an innocuous side note in line with past presidents.
Could Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” be an ode to the time in which Americans could freely subjugate other groups, those groups that power structures -- whether business, political or both -- actively work to repress? The slogan is a ruse that espouses the idea of advancing society through regression. The way to truly restore American politics and culture is to rid our consciousness of this vapid, hateful culture being given credence by a billionaire blowhard and his confused celebrity supporters.
If there couldn’t be a more damning voice in the pro-Trump camp from the combat sports world, famed boxing promoter Don King gave Trump his glowing go-ahead in that New York Times article: “To me, Donald is Donald. That’s not a presidential endorsement, but it is a humanistic endorsement.”
If Don King endorses the kind of human being Trump is, it’d be in MMA’s best interest -- that includes White, Sonnen, Ortiz and whoever else might have made the mistake of publically getting behind Trump -- to steer away from standing alongside King in the Trump supporter section.
Danny Acosta is a SiriusXM Rush (Channel 93) host and contributor. His writing has been featured on Sherdog.com for nearly a decade. Find him on Twitter and Instagram @acostaislegend.
