Hunger Games: This is How Empires End
We are now living inside Trump's "Kayfabe" world
In the "you can't make this stuff up" file comes a disturbing news item: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reportedly considering a TV series reminiscent of The Hunger Games in which immigrants would compete for U.S. citizenship. As US News reports, the proposed series is called "The American," named after the train that contestants would ride around the country, competing in regionally specific "cultural" contests such as logrolling in Wisconsin. The pitch claims the show would culminate in "a grand finale with the winner getting sworn in as a citizen on the steps of the U.S. Capitol." According to the proposal DHS is considering, while these immigrants endure multiple humiliations, "Along the way, we will be reminded what it means to be American–through the eyes of the people who want it most."
What aspect of this pitch is most sickening? Is it the image of a train full of desperate people seeing this charade as their last opportunity to establish new lives in America? Or perhaps the Wisconsin logrolling contest was designed to "prove" their pioneer mentality? The real question is, how did this absurd, morally reprehensible idea rise through the DHS bureaucracy? There is only one answer: pleasing the boss—Trump, whose inner circle knows he delights in such demeaning spectacle.
The serious consideration of this monstrous idea by our reality TV president indicates that we've crossed another line as a nation. We are no longer flirting with authoritarianism; we are embracing fascism's essential art form—cruelty as a spectator sport. We are descending into a decadence reminiscent of Roman emperors who watched with mouths agape as unarmed men battled undernourished lions and tigers in the Colosseum. As Edward Gibbon noted in his classic work on the fall of the Roman Empire, that era's decline was characterized by "a place where bizarreness masqueraded as creativity."
Trump's affinity for bizarre spectacle was nurtured during his 30-year association with World Wrestling Entertainment. As one writer pointed out, wrestling's core tenet is its commitment to "kayfabe"—maintaining the illusion of authenticity while everyone knows it's staged. This concept has metastasized in Trump's hands from entertainment into governance. But there's a crucial difference: wrestling fans choose the fantasy, while asylum seekers face real consequences in this perverse game.
Kayfabe represents an agreement between fans and wrestlers to accept a middle-ground reality for the sake of the show. Wrestling fans know it's fake, but most of the fun comes from the blurred lines between reality and make-believe. Trump is playing his immigrant survival game on the world stage, causing untold misery. He disregards normal rules protecting genuine asylum seekers, preferring his own criteria to determine who stays and who is sent to detention centers in places like El Salvador. He feels free to prioritize white Afrikaners over long-term U.S. residents with established families.
Kayfabe gives Trump's supporters an extra layer of moral insulation. Rather than acknowledging the real consequences of his arbitrary immigration policies, his MAGA supporters can pretend it's just another example of Trump fighting "bad guys." They can view becoming a "legitimate American" as a battle staged for entertainment, allowing themselves to be amused at the expense of "unworthy losers" competing in the show.
It should be clear by now that Trump has no understanding of governance, or whether governing rather than entertainment is even the point. He promised to lower prices "from day one," but instead raised them through his tariff scheme. He portrays himself as a peacemaker while failing to bring Russia to the negotiating table, neglecting to pressure Israel to stop the devastation in Gaza, and accepting a $400 million plane from Qatar in violation of the Constitution. He illegally shuts down USAID—causing at least 15,000 deaths—and entire agencies without authority, while his family travels the Middle East to benefit his hotel empire. He slashes medical and scientific research for no clear reason, nearly tanking the stock market, threatening America's triple-A bond rating, and weakening NATO and our other alliances.
The ostensible reason for this ill-informed budget cutting is to finance tax cuts for the wealthy donors who fund Trump's campaigns. As the Associated Press reports, "The Treasury's Office of Tax Analysis estimates that the top 0.1% of earners would get a tax cut of $314,000 under a full extension of the individual and estate tax provisions, with the total cost of those tax cuts amounting to $4.2 trillion between 2026 and 2035." This combination of incompetence and malevolence will occupy historians for decades, who will forever ask what kind of leader could possibly think this made sense.
The only semi-coherent explanation is that neither Trump nor his MAGA supporters are living in our reality—we are now living in his kayfabe world. As one writer puts it, "letting voters get caught up in the fandom makes unprecedented policy decisions all the more possible. From tariffs that threaten to raise daily costs on voters who say they voted because of the economy, to DOGE cuts resulting in job and program losses that upend economic security for many...the second Trump administration has taken to operating in a way that constantly asks constituents to not just accept but actively buy into a reality that runs counter to the facts on the ground. It's kayfabe for government: creating a world for men to freely express emotion and set policies with no limits—and no consequences—for violating once-accepted standards and norms."
Before this kayfabe nightmare ends, we will surely see more Hunger Games theatrics—more opportunities for MAGA crowds to indulge fantasies of conquest and domination. The first such display, scheduled for June 14 (Trump's birthday), will feature a North Korean-style military parade which, according to USA Today, will include "dozens of tanks rumbling through the streets of Washington, warplanes buzzing overhead, and 7,500 soldiers housed in government office buildings downtown," at an estimated cost exceeding $40 million.
No justice, no sanity, no humanity—just empty spectacles echoing Orwell's chilling description of fascism:
"There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."