If you’re wondering why Nigel Farage is currently looking so vulnerable, while his hero Donald Trump remains largely untouched by much bigger scandals, the word you probably don’t know you’re looking for is “kayfabe”.
It most often refers to the process by which the promoters of and participants in professional wrestling collude to create an illusion of reality, with carefully choreographed action, painstakingly scripted interactions and predetermined results, all presented to the public as authentic moments.
Crucially, for our purposes here, it also describes the necessity of those participants remaining in character almost all the time. “Breaking kayfabe”, or stepping out of character, involves breaking a spell so lucrative that the largest promoter in the world, WWE, generated approximately $1.7bn (£1.3bn) dollars in revenue last year alone. Safe to say, it is not encouraged.
I’ve spent years searching for a Rosetta Stone that can unlock the mystery of how Trump retained support even as his conduct plumbed unprecedented depths of depravity and moral corruption. And I think I’ve found it. The bad news for Farage is that he is going to find it incredibly hard to emulate.
We all have moments that we believed would signal the end of first Trump’s political ambitions, and latterly his political career. The p***y-grabbing confession; appearing to mock the disabled New York Times journalist Serge Kovaleski; blatant lies about the 2020 election result; and his role in stoking the anger that exploded in the 2021 attack on the Capitol. The list is almost endless and the failure of any of it to land with the electorate in a meaningful sense is utterly baffling.
