Fake News?: The "WrestleMainfication" of American Politics
Alyssa A. Buck
Wifrid Laurier University, Department of Communication Studies
CS304A
Dr. Andrew Herman
February 9th, 2026
The way American Politics is conducted has changed over time, especially with the arrival of new Presidential Candidates and Presidents. Each of them has their own way of conducting themselves in the media and public realm. The curtain between reality and spectacle is disappearing through President Donald Trump's use of professional wrestling media techniques. The article "The Line Between Politics and Pro Wrestling has Disappeared" by Jason Myles examines how Donald Trump set the stage for power and spectacle for the masses in his 2016, 2020, and 2024 election cycles. The similarity persists in 2026, during Trump's second Presidency. The boundary between professionalism and American politics has indeed evaporated. American politics is now taken as a joke in many places because of the theatrics Trump displayed, but aren't most countries concerned about his actions, leaving everyone else to sit at the end of their chair in anticipation of what show is next on the roster? Many critics dismiss wrestling as a low form of entertainment, particularly for its aesthetics, with kayfabe denoting the rule of maintaining the stage's charade as real-life truth (Myles, 2026). This gives the public space to discuss power and spectacle in politics. In James W. Carey's reading, two major themes align with Jason Myles's article and Leanne Betasamoske Simpson, making it a strong case study for both readings. The first being Carey's transmission and ritual views. Secondly, there are Simpsons' concepts about sintering.
By applying Carey's ritual view of communication and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's concept, it becomes clear that the "WrestleManiafication" of politics is much more apparent. Thus, modern political power no longer relies solely on the transmission of facts but on the ritualistic construction of a shared symbolic reality that prioritizes emotional reactions over material truths. In the reading, "communication is a symbolic process which involves how reality is moulded, maintained, and created." (Carey, p. 17).
Jason Myles's article, "The Line Between Politics and Pro Wrestling Has Disappeared," can serve as a case study for the two authors' communication theories in the class readings. The main argument of the articles is that professional wrestling is not merely a lowly form of entertainment for men but has become the primary template for contemporary American politics, as Myles analyzes how the wrestling concept of kayfabe is used. Kayfabe is an unwritten rule in wrestling that requires all participants to maintain a facade of truthfulness, regardless of how staged the conflict is, during and after fights (Myles, 2026). Keyfabe defines the article as a whole because Trump is now harnessing its power alongside the dramatics of staged wrestling. The article examines how Trump is now the "conductor of the entire orchestra of kayfabe," prioritizing spectacle, immediacy, and emotional punch over truth and policy (Myles, 2026). After describing how professional wrestling uses all the characters and roles people play, Myles explains that in the arena, no one cares about reality. Entertainment and the show are central. The same is said about politics. It is no longer much about governance; the presidency is the stage and the world is his audience. Performance outranks truth.
"Neokayfabe is a term describing a system where the audience is told everything is fake except the parts they choose to believe are real" (Myles, 2026). This system supports the idea that the fans "choose their own reality" and stay entrenched within the ring. Making truth irrelevant as long as they stay paying attention. Later, Jason Myles presents a case of corporate kayfabe by using Richard Montanez as an example, discussing the "Flamin' Hot Cheetos" mythology. The story is about a janitor who worked his way up the totem pole, became an executive, and then created the famous "Hot Cheetos". The reality of this story is that it is fake. Like wrestling, corporate myths demand emotional investment rather than factual accuracy, which Trump harnessed throughout his career (Myles, 2026).
This section will dissect the theoretical frameworks of James W. Carey's two logics of communication and Leanne Batasamosake Simpson's concept of "sinstering". First is Carey's transmission view, defined as "a process where messages are transmitted and distributed in space for the control of distance and people" (Carey, p. 14). The transmission view is the most common definition of communication in industrial cultures, according to Carey (Carey, p. 14). The view is a metaphor for geography and transportation, where the movement of information mirrors the movement of goods or people; it is also rooted in religious and political desires to establish or influence the kingdom of God across vast areas.
Secondly, there is Carey's ritual view, which sees communication as a fellowship in time. Although this is an older definition of communication, it still applies to the article, as it focuses on community and shared beliefs. The ritual view is defined as maintaining society over time rather than extending communication in space (Carey, p. 18). The ritual, as Carey suggests, is not a message sent from a distance, but a common ceremony that brings people together around a shared faith and understanding. Under this view, news is not "information acquisition" but a ritual act that functions like a service or mass event, in which the audience learns nothing new. Still, members and participants are invited into a "portrayal of contending forces" in the world. Its goal is to confirm a shared reality rather than to move facts (Carey, p. 18).
To connect the two previous topics is Carey's overarching definition of communion. It is a "symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed" (Cary, p. 22). Reality is not just out there for us, but we do in fact produce it ourselves, a statement many will agree on, and some will not. Communication models have a dual aspect: they represent reality by describing how things are and by creating the conditions that make them so.
From an Indigenous counterpoint to Carey's Western-centred frameworks is Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's perspective. Her concept of sintering articulates communication as a ritual. Like Carey's ritual view, sintering emphasizes the bonding of communities within the shared creation of meaning. This community bonding is achieved through ritualistic practices that connect to the "predatory spectacle" (Betasamosake Simpson, 2025).
Modern politics has moved away from the transmission of facts to the "ritual" of a staged fight. This section will be talking about just that, politics as kayfabe, the ritual logic. Carey argues that the ritual view of communication treats news as attending a mass, a situation in which nothing new is learned. A particular view of the world is portrayed and confirmed in these masses (Carey, p. 16). This description aligns with Myles' definition of kayfabe: the "unwritten rule” that participants must maintain character within the show to sustain the emotional drama. In the ritual dream, President Donald Trump acts as the "conductor of the entire orchestra of kayfabe". He does not provide policy and transmission; instead, Trump arranges cues and shapes the "emotional cadence" of the political arena (Myles, 2026). Although this is not saying that all Trump's supporters are idiots who believe the show is 100% real, like wrestling fans, they "knowingly embrace a form of theater" but this theatre happens to be the world stage of politics. This theatre feels more honest to the fans than traditional news (Myles, 2026).
In the article, Myles explains that in wrestling, promotional activities involve a wrestler yelling violent threats to generate heat. Heat in wrestling means attention. Trump does the same thing to generate more heat. Getting aggressive is a good tactic, such as using xenophobic rhetoric or calling migrants "vermin". Trump is not transmitting date he is performing a promo designed to make his audience “stand from their seats and pick up their folding chairs” (Myles, 2026). The goal of this ritualistic act is not to inform people of facts and ideas but to incite outrage and elicit an immediate reaction.
A central idea of Carey's work is that communication is a "symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed" (Carey). Reality is not given but staged. Neokayfabe is a term used to describe the current political reality, according to Myles' article. Truth is irrelevant in this world because the audience can choose to believe what they want about the spectacle. According to Carey, "first we produce the world's symbolic work and then take up residence in the world we have produced." Trumpmainia and the MAGA movement are a produced reality that functions as a ritual collective built on grievance (Carey, p. 30).
One could say that President Trump has sintering into the spectacle of American politics. According to Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's concept, sintering is a process of joining and communal transformation, and it is an Indigenous mindset on communication (Simpson, p. 14). An example of this idea she used in her book is how snowflakes bond and form a pack of snow, almost indistinguishable from one another. In the ritual view, sintering occurs through the "representation of shared beliefs," such as the snowflakes that humans bond over in drama (Simpson, p. 14). Kayfabe politics creates a perverse form of sintering. Instead of the inclusive, life-giving bonds Simpson describes, Trump's ritual creates a "coalition of grievance” in which individuals sinter together through full allegiance to a shared narrative (Simpson, p. 22). The allegiance highlights Simpson's point that "what we do on a small scale is how we exist at the large scale" (Simpson, p. 3). The small-scale emotional buy-in of a wrestling fan becomes, on a large scale, a hegemonic modality of political power.
In conclusion, the intertwining of professional wrestling and American politics, as illustrated by Donald Trumpès approach, highlights a significant shift in communication dynamics. By leveraging kayfabe and theatricality, Trump has transformed political engagement into a spectacle where emotional resonance often overshadows factual discourse. Drawing on James Carey's ritual view and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's concepts of sintering, it becomes evident that politics has evolved into a drama that shapes collective realities. This "WrestleManiafication" signifies a critical evolution in how citizens engage with political narratives, ultimately prioritizing entertainment and performance over genuine governance and truth.
Citations
Carey, J. W. (1989). A cultural approach to communication. In Communication as culture: Essays on media and society (pp. 13–36). Unwin Hyman
Myles, J. (2026, January 26). The line between politics and pro wrestling has disappeared. Current Affairs. https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/donald-trump-is-a-pro-wrestling-villain
Simpson, L. B. (2025). Theory of water: Nishnaabe maps to the times ahead. Haymarket Books
Thank you Allyssa, I really liked your explanation of Carey’s ritual model of communication, especially your point that modern politics functions less as policy discussion and more as symbolic performance. Your explanation of “neokayfabe” was especially interesting because it highlights how audiences knowingly participate in a constructed reality, which strongly reflects Carey’s argument that communication produces and maintains shared meaning rather than simply delivering information.
ReplyDeleteOne part of your post made me think about how political rallies themselves function as ritual communication spaces, particularly through music and crowd participation. For example, I used the example in my analysis on the music played before Trump appears at rallies seems to function similarly to ceremonial or pre-event music in religious or sporting contexts. The songs help unify the crowd emotionally, build anticipation, and create a shared identity among participants before any political speech even begins or at church during worship songs or hym's. In that sense, the music is not transmitting policy ideas but preparing the audience to participate in a collective emotional experience together. I think this fits really well with Carey’s idea that ritual communication maintains social bonds and reinforces shared beliefs over time.
Your discussion of sintering also made me think about how these rally environments create a type of bonding through shared emotional intensity. While you describe this as a “coalition of grievance,” I wonder if this type of sintering could also explain why political identities sometimes become stronger through conflict or perceived threats. It seems similar to how Simpson describes pressure strengthening relational bonds, but in this case, the bonding may be organized around political spectacle rather than community care.
Your post also made me think about how digital media extends kayfabe politics beyond physical rallies. Social media clips, memes, and livestreamed rally moments allow audiences to repeatedly participate in these ritual experiences even when they are not physically present. This seems to blur the line between transmission and ritual communication.
Lastly, do you think audiences fully recognize the theatrical nature of political spectacle and choose to participate anyway, or do you think ritual communication makes the performance feel authentic regardless of whether it is staged? I think your argument about neokayfabe could support either interpretation, and I would be interested to hear how you see audience awareness shaping political communication today.
Thanks,
Nick S