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The Vulgar Presidency: Cage Fights and Chamber Music Nostalgia

Photograph Source: Haribhagirath – CC BY-SA 4.0

“Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you bunch of crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” the President of the United States wrote on Truth Social on Easter Sunday, in reference to Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Unpresidential language? The word vulgar has two meanings; common and ordinary, or rude and obscene. Are Donald Trump’s language and behavior common and ordinary, or rude and obscene?

The Trump White House has little in common with the world of John F. Kennedy, where the virtuoso cellist Pablo Casals once performed chamber music in the East Room in an atmosphere of restraint, ceremony, and cultural respect. Today, the symbolism has shifted: not silence and strings, but noise, spectacle, and something closer to a Roman gladiator arena. The change is tonal. One presidency presented itself through refinement; Trump’s presidency presents itself through performance, volume, and theatrical display.

Trump’s recent behavior reflects his efforts to embody “vulgarity” in the sense of the common, the ordinary, the language of the people.  He graciously welcomed a woman—identified as Sharon Simmons, a DoorDash delivery driver often referred to in media coverage as the “DoorDash Grandma”—informally to the White House in connection with Trump’s campaign to eliminate taxes on tips. And while chatting with reporters, Trump announced plans for a June 14 Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) exhibition event on the grounds of the White House, with projected temporary seating for tens of thousands. He amiably offered Ms. Simmons tickets.

Was Trump being vulgar? Historically, “vulgar” meant the language of the people, the vernacular. As an example: the Geneva Bible, translated into English rather than Latin, was “vulgar,” written in the language of ordinary people rather than the select language of the church. The Bible traveled on the Mayflower and is one reason why the name Geneva appears in dozens of American towns and cities. In that sense, vulgar is similar to popular.

But when does the popular become obscene? When is the threshold crossed between what is acceptable language and behavior and what is rude and obscene, especially for a president?

Trump’s welcoming a delivery driver to the White House in a friendly fashion is a “vulgar” demonstration in the positive sense. Her arrival at the White House was less a routine DoorDash delivery than a symbolic gesture staged for the general public as part of Trump’s campaign to eliminate taxes on tips. Trump asked the woman questions in an informal manner, expressed sympathy for her husband’s illness, and even offered her a tip for delivering two bags of McDonald’s fast food. His solicitous attitude as president was designed to be common, popular, and sympathetic.

But here the meaning of vulgar begins to shift from common and ordinary to rude and obscene. What exactly is the UFC? The Ultimate Fighting Championship is the largest organization in mixed martial arts (MMA), a combat sport in which competitors use a combination of boxing, wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, and other forms of hand-to-hand fighting inside a cage. UFC fights are physically intense and often brutal. They are not frisbee or flag football.

So what happens when a violent spectacle is embraced by a U.S. president who brings cage fighting onto the grounds of the White House?

Recently, Katie Rogers, reporting in the New York Times, described Trump sitting cageside watching an MMA event with a few of his children, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and some UFC officials. Rogers wrote: “For the most part, Mr. Trump sat and impassively watched blood and saliva sprayed out from the fighters beating each other silly in front of him…The floor was stained with splotches of dried blood from the first match of the evening when a fighter took a hard hit to the forehead.”

Nothing unusual? Donald Trump has attended many UFC events over the years. (He is also a devoted fan of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), a form of “athletic theater,” and made the founder’s wife, Linda McMahon, U.S. Secretary of Education.) But at the same time Trump was watching the bouts on the evening of April 11, Vice-President J.D. Vance took the podium in Pakistan and said that no deal had been reached to end the Iran war. Rogers observed: “It was unclear whether the President knew that negotiations had failed by the time he entered the arena for the UFC match to a Kid Rock song and thunderous applause.”

Later, as J. D. Vance made his way back to Washington from Islamabad, Rogers reported that Trump announced that the United States would immediately “begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz.” He added that any Iranian firing at American forces or “peaceful vessels” would be “BLOWN TO HELL”—language that sounded less diplomatic than an extension of the UFC fights he had just watched.

The UFC comparison with Casals’ performance is stark. When Pablo Casals performed at the White House, the event was not simply elitist entertainment; it was symbolic. When he performed “El Cant dels Ocells,” a Catalan song associated with exile and peace, the East Room became a place where music carried moral and political weight. Casals belonged to a culture that valued listening, patience, and reflection. The UFC belongs to a culture of spectacle, where noise, impact, brutality, and immediate excitement dominate, reminiscent of the ancient Colosseum.

What happens when the “common” is no longer transformed into art but into violent performance? The UFC exhibition planned on the White House grounds is one example of Trump’s vulgarity. His invitation to the DoorDash delivery woman reads differently when set against that future event. It crosses a threshold.

The question is not simply which is more entertaining—UFC or Casals—but what kind of symbols a country’s president chooses to place at the center of American life. What kind of role model is he?

Donald Trump is truly vulgar. The 45th and 47th president of the United States embodies both meanings of the word: common and popular, but also rude, obscene, and coarsely performative.

Daniel Warner is the author of An Ethic of Responsibility in International Relations. (Lynne Rienner). He lives in Geneva.

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