Electoral Leglock

Stumbled across this great post at Right Wing News regarding trends in professional wrestling and how they may give some insight into the political mood of the country.

Which leads me to what I wanted to talk about -- what can politicians learn from wrestling? I know this sounds like an odd topic, but I agree that "professional wrestling is an excellent barometer of the mood of the middle and lower socio-economic strata" and if you screen out the apolitical characters, there are some interesting lessons about politics that can be learned by what the crowd likes and hates.

For example...

Wrestling fans hate rich, pampered, personas who brag about how much money they make & think that they're better than anyone else. John Bradshaw Layfield is a good example. So Mr. McMahon, Ted DiBase, and some other characters that weren't as popular like "The Mean Street Posse" & Tiger Ali Singh also fall into that category. One of the things they do to help establish "Heels" (bad guys) is have them establish limos. John Bradshaw Layfield for example has this huge, ostentatious limo with steer horns on the front of it. It's sort of his way of saying, "I'm richer than you and I think I'm better than you because of it".

Application: Think of George Bush Sr. being painted as a rich, out-of-touch, guy who didn't even know how a super market scanner worked (not a true story, but it still hurt him). Also, I'm convinced that a big part of the reason that George W. Bush is considered more likable than Kerry (of course, both of them are filthy rich) is that Bush not only lives and vacations in little Crawford, Texas, he actually does things like cut brush. You don't picture a pampered rich guy cutting brush. On the other hand, Kerry has all those estates, the expensive mountain bike, and he goes on these exotic vacations where he's snowboarding and wind surfing. It makes people like him less.

There are too many examples to count of the use of class warfare in professional wrestling. It's a surefire way to generate heat for the heels and this may be one of the reasons the left has always employed class warfare as a cornerstone of their national campaigns.

On the other hand, wrestling fans, particularly American fans tend to be very nationalistic. You will never go wrong talking up America or waving a flag around. Furthermore, the WWE made a big show of supporting the soldiers in Iraq.

On the other hand, there's no easier way to gin up "Heat" than to trash the US as villains like the Iron Sheik, "The Russian Bear" Ivan Kolov, and the latest annoying foreigners, La Résistance (they're French, but shocker there, I know) have proven.

Application: If you can point out to people how people like Ted Rall, Michael Moore, & Noam Chomsky trash America, you will permanently turn people off to their ideas.

The Cold War was the peak time for nationalistic gimmicks - the Russians, Iranians (early 80s, really), even the lowly Australian Sheepherders generated heat and I can't remember why. It was probably their accents.

Growing up in Tennessee - raised on Mid-South/AWA Wrestling - there was also a lot of use of the race card in generating heat and attendance. I remember (or should I say, it was seared in my memory) being in attendance at the Memphis Mid South Coliseum when an angle between the Snowman (a huge babyface - big crowd favorite, who also happened to be black) and Jerry "The King" Lawler nearly created a race riot. If I recall correctly, they killed that angle shortly thereafter due to public safety concerns.

This is a topic that really deserves some research and development - and I would imagine there are probably already books written about professional wrestling and its related political/social implications. I'm going to go look for some right now. I don't feel much like working anyway.