Opinion | Why Trump has found such a receptive male audience in the world of MMA

New analysis from The New Republic this week highlights the UFC’s deep links to Donald Trump — and conservative extremism more broadly. The influential mixed martial arts (MMA) organization, Sam Eagan writes, “is betting that it can leverage right-wing politics to become a massive sports organization. Trump, meanwhile, has embraced it as an extension of his own brash and violent brand — and as a means of reaching young men.”

The UFC, and MMA in general, has long attracted right-wing fans. “Extremists have used the sport’s counter-culture mystique to entice and radicalize disenfranchised young men and to provide them a shared space to spread their ideology,” journalist Karim Zidan argues in his Sports Politika newsletter. “They have also used the sport to whitewash their activities and normalize their existence, primarily through interweaving themselves into local fight scenes and culture.” Now Trump is looking to take advantage.

But the implications of the UFC’s pivot rightward go beyond the 2024 presidential election and highlight a larger Western crisis of masculinity. The language of “alpha” MMA fighters like Sean Strickland is deeply familiar to anyone who has spent time studying men’s rights activists and “incel” culture. Trump’s rhetoric mimics many of these ideas too — from the notorious recording in which he appeared to brag about sexually assaulting women, to the talking points he espouses about “family, freedom and God,” to his endorsement of “law and order,” his anti-immigrant messaging and his vow to “stop” gender-affirming care for minors.

The common thread here is insecurity, specifically the insecurity of men anxious about their place in the world. Traditionally white and patriarchal structures are having to evolve and adapt thanks to things like more women in positions of power, declining birth rates, marriage equality, the increasing queerness of younger generations, and (largely perceived) gains related to trans rights. The far-right, racist and fascist movements prey on men’s fears, essentially implying that men may end up oppressed and subjugated in a diverse society. And while these ideas have been prevalent in white male culture for a long time, more nonwhite men have also bought into them over the years, expanding the reach of this hateful ideology.

A 2020 study from the journal “Sport in History” found that martial arts and combat sports can play a significant role in the construction of masculine identities, as well as “in attaching symbolic importance to objective biological differences”— making them an ideal breeding ground for certain types of transphobic, queerphobic and misogynist ideologies. Following progressive wins like same-sex marriage legalization in the mid-2010s, MMA appealed to certain aggrieved young men who objected to what Zidan describes as “progressive society’s supposed decadence and degeneration.”

This regressive dynamic has intensified as more sports leagues grapple with how to include trans athletes, couching their often exclusionary policies in language around fairness and equality. But when a UFC star spewed homophobic and transphobic opinions this year, they were waved away as “free speech.” Another UFC star called USA Boxing’s trans inclusion policy “disgusting” in January. Meanwhile, one of very few openly trans MMA fighters, Fallon Fox, repeatedly dealt with lies and misrepresentations about the danger she posed to the cisgender women during her career.

Some far-right groups, like the California-based Rise Above Movement, even believe fighting is a necessary skill — something they will someday need to violently “take back” or defend their country. It’s not hard to see how men radicalized to believe violence is a necessary means to restore dominance — whether that radicalization happened as a direct result of MMA or as a result of being red-pilled online by ideas prevalent in MMA culture — would be drawn to a political figure like Trump. It’s easier still to connect the dots between a group of men who believe violent struggle is righteous, if not inevitable, and the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump, notably, embraces dark and violent rhetoric during his speeches while also downplaying the violence of actual criminals, like the Capitol rioters.

And now, Trump is leaning heavily on the UFC — which dominates the MMA landscape — in his bid for re-election. “Relatively new, openly confrontational, countercultural, with a flair for theatrics, the UFC is a perfect avatar for the MAGA brand,” Eagan writes at The New Republic. It’s also “a means of putting Trump in front of a massive audience that is both overwhelmingly male and disproportionately Black and Latino, two demographics among which Trump has gained ground in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.”

This is a win-win for Trump and the financially dominant UFC, neither of which seems to be facing much pressure to change. That’s great news for extremists and MAGA politicians, but unfortunate news for the rest of us. Until there is a way to curb this ongoing masculinity crisis — and help men feel secure in their roles in an egalitarian society — this culture will continue to thrive, with or without Trump in the White House.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com