Pro-Wrestling Explains Why Trump Is Scared of Kamala

We’ve got a Yes Movement brewing.

(The Bulwark / Midjourney)

1. Trump as Vinnie Mac

We are seeing signs of panic from Donald Trump because he recognizes something in Kamala Harris that he has not seen in any other opponent: The beginnings of a cultural movement that vibrates at a level beyond politics.

He sees that Kamala Harris is drawing heat.

To explain this concept, we’re going to have to go deep into professional wrestling. This one’s going to be a journey. So strap in.

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To understand Trump, you must understand professional wrestling.¹ Trump has long ties to the WWE and Vince McMahon, and Trump’s forays into wrestling formed his understanding of how populism and demagoguery function.

Here is how wrestling works:

The WWE was the creation of one man: Vince McMahon. McMahon was the Barnum of wrestling. Until recently, he alone decided who won and who lost, which characters were pushed and which faded into obscurity.

McMahon could be vindictive and capricious in his decisions, but at the most basic level he was guided by the audience. If a wrestler resonated with the crowd, McMahon would give them more work and elevate their standing. If a wrestler McMahon favored didn’t get a reaction, he would eventually sideline the wrestler or remake the character.

It is important to understand that the reaction McMahon looked for was value-neutral. It does not matter if the crowd loves a wrestler or hates him. In wrestling parlance this reaction is referred to as “heat” and there are two kinds of heat: (1) Heel heat, which is hatred and loathing on the part of the audience against villainous characters (known as “heels”). And (2) Face heat, which is love and adulation for heroic characters (known as “faces,” short for “babyfaces”).²

A wrestler’s most important job is to draw heat from the audience and it does not matter if the audience is booing or cheering. What matters is that they are loud and active.³ What matters is that the crowd cares.

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Heat has been Trump’s political lodestar.

It explains why he pursued the Obama-birther story so doggedly even before he was running for president. It explains why he stopped talking about Operation Warp Speed. He’s even talked about heat explicitly, making fun of Republican audiences who yawn when he mentions about tax cuts but go crazy when he does trans issues.

In his lizard brain, Trump sees drawing heat as the pathway to dominating the culture and thus winning elections.

In this way, Trump is a savant. He has drawn heel heat more successfully than any figure in the history of American politics and used that power to take complete ownership of a political party.

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So from Trump’s perspective, you can understand why he was so vexed by Joe Biden in 2020. No one really cared about Biden,⁴ who drew no heat, one way or the other. Biden was just kind of there, taking moderate positions and running a boring, effective campaign operation.

In Trump’s mind, his loss to Biden was the political equivalent of Hulk Hogan dropping the championship belt to some forgettable, mid-card talent. That’s not supposed to happen.⁵

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2. Kamala as Daniel Bryan

Kamala Harris has succeeded—suddenly, unexpectedly—in drawing tremendous amounts of heat.