MAGA is welfare for losers

I will not repeat what that UFC fighter said about Michelle Obama. Instead, I will say Josh Hokit did more than reiterate a "conspiracy theory," as USA Today put it. It cannot be "debunked," as there is no real question about the former first lady's gender. What he did was defamation, plain and simple. He wanted to discredit the good name of a revered Black woman. Moreover, he and others like doing it. It's fun. As I often say, sadism is the point.

Some believe we should not talk about what Hokit did, as giving him more attention has the result of enlarging his defamation of Obama. While I'm sympathetic to this perspective (it seeks peace, after all), I think it's wrong. We can't ignore the trash. Eventually, it piles up and takes over. It stinks. Everyone hates it. Someone's got to take it out. May as well be me.

First, bear in mind the larger context in which Josh Hokit's insult took place. He is, as you know, part of the broader movement toward "male supremacist and fascist politics," as Alan Elrod put it in Liberal Currents, in a December piece looking ahead to the White House UFC fight. Alan said it offers "a violent, cutthroat society where the loser is scorned and victor takes the spoils. And it’s precisely the kind of order Donald Trump wants to put on display."
Alan went on: "Such an event is both an assertion of fascist politics and a tacit acknowledgment of how far we have already fallen. It promises to be a spectacle of toxic male supremacy, put on by an administration that touts the male 'war fighter' as the peak of physical fitness. It’s an obsession, as I’ve noted, with both male power and male bodies."

But the male supremacist vision of an America in which the "war fighter" is seen as the peak of physical fitness looks different when you know something about Hokit, which is why we should give him more attention, not less. After a promising career playing college football and wrestling, Hokit tried to make it as a pro football player, but couldn't. He washed out.

In 2020, the San Francisco 49ers signed him to the practice squad. By 2022, they cut him. Hokit later signed with the Arizona Cardinals. That same year, they cut him. By 2023, he was fighting, but not because he trained for it, or because he had a desire to test his meddle. The reason was he couldn't cut it elsewhere. The NFL wouldn't take him. The UFC would.

So already, the male supremacist vision is looking, well, less than supreme. Turns out that Josh Hokit is one among thousands of young men with big dreams who failed to reach that highest "peak of physical fitness." He was forced to find alternatives. But male supremacy takes another blow when you consider an additional fact. Hokit's opponent at the White House UFC fight was 14 years his senior, with a fight record three times as long. Apparently, Derrick Lewis used to be a big deal. He holds the UFC's record for most knockouts. But at 41 and out of shape, he's clearly a spent force. All you got to do is watch the fight to see that.

Which is what I did.

The entire bout is about four minutes long, from the opening bell through Derrick Lewis going down by technical knockout in the second round (which means the referee called the fight). If you want to watch it, click here. But trust me. These five clips are representative.

A minute and change into the fight, both men are already gassed:

Your browser does not support the video tag. Courtesy of UFC.

The exhausted couple shares a moment. Hokit pitterpats Lewis' belly, which wobbles:

Your browser does not support the video tag. Courtesy of UFC.

Here, both have hands down. Exposed, vulnerable, spent:

Your browser does not support the video tag. Courtesy of UFC.

Here, Lewis throws weary haymakers. Hokit watches them go by:

Your browser does not support the video tag. Courtesy of UFC.

When it's over, Hokit, who did not take a solid punch, can barely stand:

Your browser does not support the video tag. Courtesy of UFC.

I'm walking you through these scenes, because they point to a paradox within the male supremacist movement, as represented by the White House UFC fight. Combat sports do not make a man. They reveal him – and his true inner character. On watching his fight, everyone can see who Josh Hokit really is: a 27-year-old man who's so unprepared, so undisciplined and so unskilled that he barely beat a fighter a decade-and-a-half older and well-past his prime. If this is male supremacy's test of manhood, Hokit failed it or it's no test at all.

Combat reveals the truth, so a male supremacist project built around combat must be careful about outcomes. Given that its power arises from the appearance of strength, not actual strength, Hokit can taunt rivals for being "fat and slow and lazy" but never face the consequences of being fat and slow and lazy. Lewis did not make solid contact, and Hokit is badly depleted by the end, but the commentators hype him anyway: "Despite all the crazy freak stuff, the man can fight," one says, as if we're all looking at the same fighter. Merit doesn't matter, the Bleacher Report suggested after the fight. Hokit has "a few things going for him that could see him fighting for the title sooner than later. For one, he knows how to generate attention." It would be bad enough for male supremacy to be a social order in which "the loser is scorned and the winner takes the spoils." But if the Hokit-Lewis fight is any indication, it's more like a social order that's been rigged to make losers look like winners.

In a follow-up piece Tuesday, Alan Elrod said that, "Hokit singled out a prominent Black woman for humiliation ... and in doing so reiterated the maga belief that there is really only one right way to be an American. That is, to be male, white, heterosexual, and willing to do violence to anyone who isn’t these things. [The White House UFC fight] was not, and never could be, for everyone. It was always ... for the most vicious and barbarous among us."

Let's add, however, that if Josh Hokit is maga's idea of male supremacy, supremacy isn't the point. Fraud is, which brings me back to this: we can't ignore the trash. These men can't live up to their stated ideals. They don't intend to try, because they don't believe in ideals. If they did, they would commit to improving themselves, as men, through greater skill, discipline and mastery in preparation for the moment when the truth about them will be revealed.

But why do that hard work when there is a system already in place – call it whiteness welfare, if you wish – that rewards failure, punishes integrity and allows "fat and slow and lazy" men to pretend to be noble "war fighters"? It's so much easier, and so much more fun, to defame a revered Black woman who actually earned her place in American history. The viciousness and the barbarism are signs of weakness – of male inferiority. We should say so.

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