Atlantic Writer Cites French Philosopher to Libsplain White House UFC Fights

Newsbusters ^ | June 16, 2026 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

On Monday, Atlantic Magazine published a story that could have served as a script outline for an SCTV skit. In fact, it even sounded like a parody to the author of the piece, Gal Beckerman, since he admitted the absurdity his own premise, "The Theory That Explains Trump’s UFC Fight."

"I am aware that bringing a French structuralist to a cage fight borders on self-parody."

And Beckerman certainly does sound like he is writing parody by trying to explain the perceived meaning behind the UFC 250 fights at the White House on Sunday night by citing a philosopher.

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: donaldtrump; frenchphilosopher; ufc; ufc250; whitehouse

[PJ-Comix]

I just knew SCTV would have a pretentious philosophers skit.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Maybe Trump just likes to watch the gorillas hitting each other?

[Billthedrill]

It works better while the World Cup is going on:

[higgmeister]

So I had to google it and got this:

The term structuralism is ambiguous, referring to different schools of thought in different contexts. As such, the movement in humanities and social sciences called structuralism relates to sociology. Emile Durkheim based his sociological concept on 'structure' and 'function', and from his work emerged the sociological approach of structural functionalism.

Apart from Durkheim's use of the term structure, the semiological concept of Ferdinand de Saussure became fundamental for structuralism. Saussure conceived language and society as a system of relations. His linguistic approach was also a refutation of evolutionary linguistics.

So it is just another bunch of educated idiots.

[lee martell]

Extrapolations both tedious and amusing.

[BenLurkin]

” French structuralist “

The guy that built the Eiffel Tower?

[higgmeister]

Do you get the feeling that Beckerman is waaaay overthinking a fun event? Ready for an encore of sheer silliness?

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Beckerman should not be surprised if he ends up the object of much mockery for writing this piece. Even he has enough self-awareness to observe the parody ready silliness of his Libsplaining premise.

You nailed it!

[Honorary Serb]

I am one conservative who does NOT approve of UFC bouts at the White House!

But I also do not like to see how low “The Atlantic” has fallen! Many years ago, we happily subscribed to “The Atlantic”. Nowadays, under the ownership of arch-leftist Laurene Powell Jobs, one must even PAY to read “The Atlantic” online! They should pay us to read it instead!

Also unfortunately, quite a few graduates of Harvard’s excellent History and Literature concentration end up working for “The Atlantic”. It’s too bad that they could not find better employment, or even be able to start a new magazine with the integrity and depth of the old “Atlantic”. Perhaps there is a philanthropist who would be interested in funding such a venture. ??