Is Politics Like Professional Wrestling?

1-5-06 | JBroadwa

[JBroadwa]

Most people know that professional wrestling is just a show, and, as one professional wrestler put it, it's just a soap opera with a little wrestling mixed in. The outcomes -- the winners and losers -- are determined before the matches even take place, yet each event and even each match is hyped as if either opponent or either team has an actual chance of winning. Wrestlers act like they're mad at each other when in real life they're best friends. And when one of the "bad guys" happens to die in real life, everyone honors him, because, after all, they're all really on the same side. Is professional American politics like this?

[AndrewB]

Yes but not as sweaty.

[Izzy Dunne]

Not at all.

At least some people like to WATCH wrestlers do their thing.

[funkywbr]

No American security lives wealth and freedoms are not at stake in Wrestling Matches.

[saganite]

More so in the recent past than now I think. I remember Reagan and Tip O'Neil used to go at each other politically but were actually pretty good buddies. I don't think there's much love lost between Dems and Repubs right now. However, within the parties I believe certain outcomes are fore ordained.

[ClearCase_guy]

It's the summer of 2000:

John Kerry: George, I think you should win in the fall.
George W. Bush: No, No. You should win.
Kerry: I insist.
Bush: I demur.
Kerry: Tell you what. Let's make this interesting. Why don't we have a really close outcome. You win. I'll contest it. In the end, you still win, but I get to say -- HAHAHA! -- I get to say you stole it from me!
Bush: That's sounds like fun! Let's do it that way!

[MNJohnnie]

Nope. Not only completely false the article shows a total lack of even elementary understand of US politics. Sorry but this is a cute analogy in a teenage angst self important mindless babble sort of way but otherwise completely without ANY intellectual merit. However the Adults have more important things to deal with today then tempertatrums so quit wasting our time.

[YouPosting2Me]

What! Wrestling is fake!

Son of a b!tch, I gotta call my bookie...

[Darkwolf377]

this is a cute analogy in a teenage angst self important mindless babble sort of way

That was good! (Better than the article.)

[birbear]

Politics is all show. It's controlled by who has the money. (And all the people with the money are interconnected.) The World Bank, the IMF, the CFR, the TLC, even the Illuminati control everything.

It's all one big reality show put on to entertain us, to make us feel important. The really big issues are scripted and planned months and years ahead of time.

The reason why Bush is so hated is because he doesn't always play within the "rules" that the powers that be have established. He was allowed to be elected because the PTB thought he would roll over like his dad did. Bush punked out a little, and that's why he was in seclusion so much this past summer -- serving his "punishment". The PTB wanted his poll numbers to slip so they can show him who really was running things.

The 2006 campaign has already been determined. 2008 will be determined shortly by secret ballot in secret lairs across the country. It's all pretty ritualistic.

Follow the money. Watch closely what happens to Greenspan after he retires. The PTB will probably execute him before he has a chance to release his book which will reveal a lot of what I'm saying here.

[quantim]

Looking at the composition of the senate these days one could fairly conclude wrestlers are smarter.

[JBroadwa]

You know what an RKO is? :-) If you don't see the intellectual merits, then maybe you should find something better to do with your limited time on this earth than hang around at FR all day. :-(

[John Will]

Stop hogging the tin foil.

[birbear]

too late... I've already been implanted by the greys.

[x]

Well, politicians guys have to live together, so they don't want to antagonize each other too much.

A lot depends on the results. When the country is doing well cooperation between politicians is all part of a bipartisan devotion to the common good. When things are a mess, politics are fixed and a charade.

Washingtonians will tell you that the city has never been as partisan or as combattive or as ill-mannered as it's been in the last few years. The parties represent opposing and mutually-hostile ideologies more than they used to in the past, so there's supposed to be more infighting than there was in other eras.

I don't know if that's true, but such cooperation between the two parties doesn't look so bad as long as the economy is going well. If you want to see real change and populist revulsion with party politics, it comes when things break down. Otherwise, people put up with the way things are.