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The Obamas left the White House over a decade ago. And yet they persist, rent-free, in some people’s minds.
Sunday was Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 celebration for his birthday.
The bread-and-circuses event featured UFC fighting at its heart, with Trump in the front row.
After a win, fighter Josh Hokit praised himself, Jesus, and trump. He then made a wild yet familiar claim about former First Lady Michelle Obama.
‘Am I right, America?’
On Sunday, June 14, the UFC conducted a series of fights on the lawn of the White House, sponsored by the likes of Polymarket and Saudi Arabia.
Briefly overshadowing the demolished East Wing, a (hopefully) temporary UFC fighting arena was erected on the lawn.
Branded as Freedom 250, it did not take place on or represent America’s upcoming 250th anniversary. Instead, it took place on Donald Trump’s birthday. He is now 80.
The gauche display was, simply put, beyond parody. The Idiocracy parallels are difficult to ignore.
However, one of the most contemptible moments of the night came courtesy of Josh Hokit, a UFC fighter with a penchant for inflammatory commentary.
“Shout out to Trump,” he began his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, “for having the balls to put some s–t like this on.”
Hokit then praised his religion’s central figure, Jesus, as “more incredible than the Incredible Hok.” Here, he equates part of his surname to the Marvel hero, the Hulk.
He then made a remark about fighter Alex Pereira’s mother. It was sexual in nature.
“And lastly,” he announced while grinning, “Michelle Obama is a man.”
Anticipating cheers, he asked: “Am I right, America?” The reaction sounded more like groans — even from a deeply Trump-friendly crowd.
What was the point of this?
These days, people note that it is odd — if not unexpected — for Donald Trump to appear so fixated on President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the 2024 race and has been out of office for what feels like the longest 17 months in world history.
Insulting President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama over a decade after they left the White House is incredibly strange.
There is a fixation upon the Obama presidency by the American right. It was a time of social progress. The reactionary backlash to these positive changes — and to our first Black president — doomed us to over a decade of Trump.
In the former First Lady, conservatives find an educated Black woman, one of their deepest fears.
Bigots imagining her to be a transgender woman or as a secret man pulling some sort of The Birdcage act has been going on since long before any of us had heard the word transvestigating.
Whatever the goal or “reasoning” behind it, claiming that Black women appear more masculine than white women has a historic role in racism.
Most of our culture’s beauty standards are strongly influenced by white European beauty standards, which are inherently political. These social constructs are used to reinforce both systemic and personal racism.
What’s really odd is that Hokit would have been, what, a high schooler when the Obamas left the White House? He would have been a tween at most when President Obama first took office.
Cultural malice and this sort of vice signaling don’t have to make sense. It’s arguably not supposed to.
At the end of the day, Hokit is announcing that he loves Donald Trump and hates whatever Michelle Obama represents to him. For the audience to whom he’s speaking, that’s more than enough.
Josh Hokit Declares ‘Michelle Obama is a Man’ at White House UFC Fight on … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.