The US’s 250th anniversary celebrations come out swinging with a show of pumped-up machismo at the White House

Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands here to cement the historic Oslo Accord in 1993. Jackie Kennedy had tended her roses nearby. And on Sunday night, an American wearing little more than a pair of tight trunks beat a Spanish-Georgian gentleman to a bloody pulp here in front of Donald Trump as a crowd brayed, “USA! USA! USA!”

That was the scene on the White House South Lawn as the spectacle of an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bout took place to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary (and the president’s 80th birthday). The bout happened to fall on Flag Day, commemorating the US’s adoption of the Stars and Stripes, and the flag was abundantly on display. Beefy fighters draped themselves in it; skin-hugging shorts were emblazoned with it; and a colossal structure called “The Claw”, erected especially for the fight and dwarfing the White House, was lit up in red, white and blue. It was an orgy of pumped-up patriotism and testosterone, the manosphere that helped to sweep Trump to power manifest on his back lawn. 

“This is the most historic sporting event of all time,” said an overexcited announcer, which, as well as being factually questionable, seemed a bit disingenuous, considering that the US is currently hosting the World Cup and the New York Knicks won a long-awaited NBA Championship on the same weekend.

For weeks, the US media has been scrambling for the best metaphor to describe the celebration. Is it politics as a blood sport? An emperor with his gladiators? The commercialisation of the White House or the melding of politics and entertainment? 

What struck me as I watched the parade of shirtless men grappling each other as pools of blood gathered in the Octagon was the over-the-top machismo. One fighter came on to the tune of “Real American”, a wrestling theme song most closely associated with Hulk Hogan, and that’s what the evening seemed to offer: a very specific view of what it means to be a man in the US today. 

This is man as a muscular, fearless warrior without pain or sorrow – and, according to the barrage of advertising, one who also drives a Ram truck, invests in cryptocurrency and bets on Polymarket. There are female UFC fighters and referees but the only women seen in the Octagon were wearing skimpy Stars-and-Stripes dresses and carrying signs. So intense was the masculinity on display that at times it seemed to slip into camp parody: sailors singing along to “YMCA”; fighters complimenting Trump on his balls. 

There were also flashes of cruelty. American fighter Josh Hokit used his victory speech to fire off a series of profanities and declare, “Michelle Obama is a man,” on a lawn that was once her own. The final fight between American Justin Gaethje and Georgian-Spanish fighter Ilia Topuria continued even after a visibly staggering Topuria said that he couldn’t see out of one eye.

Trump won the election just a couple of years ago with the help of this fanbase. More than half of men aged 18 to 29 voted for him in November 2024, a 12-point shift from the previous election when Joe Biden won the group by 11 percentage points.

But that was before the Iran war, persistent inflation and concerns about a future job market hobbled by AI, which the administration has done little to address. A recent Harvard University Institute of Politics poll found that only 28 per cent of young men approve of Trump’s job performance. But it didn’t make it any less weird, as the fighters paraded through the rooms of the White House under the gaze of portraits of previous US presidents. Brazilian fighter Mauricio Ruffy summed it up when he said, “Fighting at the White House is really surreal.”

That was the understatement of the night. A calendar full of similarly excessive spectacles is coming up as part of the celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence. Expect more bread and circuses.