In pro wrestling argot, there are "heels" (bad guys) and "faces" (good guys). Before the internet, the suspension of disbelief about this foundational concept was much easier. You went to the arena and booed for the Russian or Iranian bad guy and cheered for the American hero. "Kayfabe" kept that illusion alive. You had to believe that these people were not only enemies in the ring but outside the ring too. It was only on those rare occasions when something weird would happen, like the good guy and the bad guy were pulled over while driving in the same car to the next show, that you realized it was all for show.
Wrestling long ago broke down that fourth wall, with no adverse effect on its ratings or popularity. Which is fine - IT'S WRESTLING, but when it comes to politics, the breaking of the fourth wall is much more consequential and best illustrated at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, which is being held this weekend. There, the whole fraud of politics is shamelessly exposed. The pundits who viciously attack each other schmooze over hors d'oeuvres, the politicians who deride the "liberal media" hobnob with their supposed foes, and everyone gets a big laugh out the issues of the day. Like, literally, jokes have been made about, to take the most glaring example, George W. Bush's lie about Iraq's production of weapons of mass destruction. HILARIOUS.
The WHCD exposes the fraud of politics, a collective group of Neros fiddling while our country burns. Self-satisfied elites having a good laugh over canapés, walking a red carpet, literally going to something that the journalist Ana Marie Cox long-ago dubbed "Nerd Prom." Trump has snubbed the event twice, and is now directing his appointees to blow it off too. Reporters are having a sad, literally begging these people to show up in order to maintain relationships with the reporters they cover. It neatly exposes how much politics is like pro wrestling. Everyone relies on the facade that there is an adversarial relationship while they secretly work behind the scenes to help each other. And we, the public, are the dupes.
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