Trump’s Claw a bigot beacon

We have become inured to the tacky tastelessness of our president and his family: destroying, then paving the Rose Garden; leveling half of the White House; slapping gold on the rest of it like a fascinated five-year-old; painting blue the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool; sticking his name onto a building designed as a memorial to another president.

One might think Donald Trump inherited his sense of design – along with his military inclinations – from the Prussian draft dodging grandfather who made the family fortune by running brothels in gold strike boomtowns.

A perpetual example that money purchases neither class nor taste, Trump seems desperate to leave his mark – even just a nasty stain – on America.

To celebrate his June 14 birthday, Trump -- turning 80 and probably due for another cognitive test -- is building a 4,000 seat arena on the South Lawn of the White House to hold a full card of Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts.

Looming over the octagon fighting ring, is a superstructure of arches painted blue with white stars giving it a flag motif. The monstrosity blocks the view of the White House.

According to Michael Rothstein of ESPN, “the 600-ton, 154-foot-wide behemoth looks like the picker end of an arcade crane game,” hence, its nickname, the “Claw.”

And Trump loves it. On his TikTok account, he posted “It’s going to have the big UFC fight on 14 June, and I’m looking at it and maybe we’ll never ever take it down.”

Trump has branded the mixed martial arts completion UFC Freedom 250 since nothing exemplifies his notion of the nation’s 250th birthday more than a made-for-TV spectacle – with himslef as the star – where the seating will be reserved mainly for sycophants and oligarchs looking to score more graft from the most corrupt administration in history.

(Donors to Trump’s ballooning-cost ballroom have already received $50 billion in federal contracts.)

On the surface, there is nothing to like about Trump’s pathetic, egomaniacal birthday bash. Beneath the surface, the view is even uglier

Some of the more prominent UFC fighters are proud white supremacists that, it turns out, represents a hidden agenda of many MMA groups.

Last year, former UFC featherweight and lightweight champ Conon McGregor visited the White House on St. Patrick’s Day and blasted Ireland’s immigration policies: “Our government has long since abandoned the voices of the people of Ireland, and it’s high time that America is made aware of what is going on.”

He claimed “There are rural towns in Ireland that have been overrun in one swoop, that have become a minority in one swoop.”

That racist message could have come from the White House denizen or many of his advisors.

For example, at a D-Day ceremony in Normandy, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth honored our fallen soldiers by proclaiming:

“Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece, and Bulgaria—boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not.”

In 2015, prior to a fight with a Brazilian, McGregor cited the “favelas,” or shantytowns outside Brazilian cities founded by newly-freed Africans when slavery was abolished. In Rio De Janeiro, McGregor bragged “If this was a different time, I would invade his favela on horseback and kill anyone that was not fit to work.”

Another UFC featherweight Bryce Mitchell – a holocaust denier – has said “I honestly think that Hitler was a good guy based on my own research…. he fought for his country and wanted to purify it by kicking out all the greedy Jews.”

Yet, while asserting his love for UFC, Mitchell recently said “our government is desecrating its role in society by entertaining sports. Our government is to protect and serve the people, and really should be as minimal as possible.”

These two proud bigots present a public face to the MMA movement. Experts say that what is happening out of sight is more insidious.

The Canadian government cites MMA along with black metal and hatecore music as “ key cultural pillars that European neo-Nazi groups use as gateways for recruitment and as springboards to foster international connections with other white supremacist networks.”

A report from France 24 last November documented the rise of MMA “Active Clubs” as covert cells in which to indoctrinate young men in white supremacist lies.

The French TV station cited the Counter Extremism Project as having identified more than100 Active Clubs in 22 countries.

In mid-May the CBC reported “Members of Canada’s biggest white nationalist group trained this spring with U.S. counterparts south of the border and met with the founder of a global movement of fascist fight clubs.”

The combined investigations of the CEP and the TV station concluded that the Active Clubs arose when its first incarnation, The Rise Above Movement, attracted too much negative attention.

American Robert Rundo – the founder of “fascist fight clubs” the CBC mentioned – is credited as the creator of both groups, the second one when it became “necessary to rebuild a network, but this time taking care to ensure that it did not appear dangerous in the eyes of the authorities,” according Alexander Ritzmann of CEP.

(Of course, with Trump heading this country, the authorities welcome those white supremacists they have not hired and condemn the anti-fascist heirs of those who stormed the beaches at Normandy.)

The goal of Rundo’s Rise Above Movement was to serve as a showcase for what Rundo called “the white male warrior spirit.”

But, France 24 explains, “these combat sports enthusiasts, nostalgic for the Third Reich, also distinguished themselves through violent actions that led to intervention by the authorities.”

Thus a rebranding and a lower profile.

The idea “is to ‘radicalize without appearing to do so,’ explain two researchers in Canada – Frédérick Nadeau and Tristan Boursier – who analyzed more than 1,000 publications from Active Clubs on Telegram ,” according to France 24.

CEP’s Ritzmann is also cited as saying these Active Clubs have a “hidden goal to become a far-right militia capable of rapid mobilization.”

Citing Trump’s embrace of the “Christian nation” nonsense as a justification for him ignoring election results, historian Timothy Snyder told Katie Couric “This is a guy who already once tried to overcome an election and stay in power.”

Trump, he says, ”needs warriors. He needs followers” to negate ballot box defeats.

Couric asked him “Is he recruiting for a coup?”

Snyder replied “Yeah, that’s what I think it’s about.”

She followed up by saying “It’s almost like he’s trying to recruit an army for a ‘holy war’ if he doesn’t stay in power.”

Snyder agreed and referenced Hegseth’s concept of war as “essentially inside the United States.”

Snyder does not think Hegseth can mobilize the U.S. military for his mission of defining it as “Christian warriors who should do the bidding” of Trump, whom irreligious preachers constantly claim to be divinely sanctioned.

MMA Active Clubs across the country are training their members to fill this void, and Trump has built a monument to them on the White House lawn – a homing beacon as it were.

Pretty damn ugly – uglier even than Trump’s gaudy, glitzy, godawful aesthetics.

(Gary Edmondson, of Duncan, OK, was a small town newspaperman. He also served as an editor/author for educational filmstrips and videos. An environmentalist, poet, sports historian, philosopher, he is chair of the Stephens County Democratic Party.)