{"id":268750,"date":"2026-06-16T18:50:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T18:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/268750\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T18:50:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T18:50:02","slug":"opinion-the-ufc-250-was-a-garish-spectacle-of-american-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/268750\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | The UFC 250 Was a Garish Spectacle of American Decline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though Vice President JD Vance has said Iran could have access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund, it\u2019s 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\u2019s achieved a level of deterrence it previously lacked. \u201cIran is not likely to take seriously that the U.S. would return to war, certainly before the U.S. midterms,\u201d wrote<\/a> Daniel Shapiro, Barack Obama\u2019s ambassador to Israel, on social media. \u201cSo that means we will be conducting diplomacy without a credible threat of force.\u201d<\/p>\n

It probably wasn\u2019t 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\u2019s quarter-millennium, the U.F.C. extravaganza was meant to celebrate Trump\u2019s 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 \u2014 which at one point<\/a> had a Marine Corps honor guard onstage with ring girls in sparkly red hot pants and a human-size Monster Energy drink can \u2014 would help lure back some of the young men disillusioned by both his war and his mishandling of the economy.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> on one excited fan who drove seven hours in the hope of seeing Trump\u2019s pageant and said, \u201cIt\u2019s like the Colosseum in real life.\u201d To America\u2019s founders, the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire was a cautionary tale. To parts of MAGA, it\u2019s apparently aspirational.<\/p>\n

But to everyone else, the confluence of America\u2019s failure in Iran and Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The conservative writer Marc Thiessen tried to depict Trump\u2019s 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. \u201cIf you\u2019re offended by that, you may be an elitist snob,\u201d he wrote<\/a>. Put aside, for a moment, the fact that Thiessen once clucked<\/a> that Barack Obama was failing to maintain \u201cpresidential dignity.\u201d By this standard \u2014 that U.F.C. brawls, which John McCain once called \u201chuman cockfighting,\u201d belong in the White House because lots of Americans like them \u2014 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though Vice President JD Vance has said Iran could have access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund, it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4074,1452,14670,1983,9,11,10,160,1069,95528,1876,79268,9233],"class_list":["post-268750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-dc","tag-donald-j","tag-iran","tag-mixed-martial-arts","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-peace-process","tag-trump","tag-ultimate-fighting-championship","tag-united-states-politics-and-government","tag-united-states-semiquincentennial-2026","tag-white-house-building-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}