(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . A Note on President Trump’s Birthday [1] ['Chitown Kev', 'Belinda Ridgewood', 'Bill In Portland Maine', 'Blue Choir Singer'] Date: 2026-06-16 In ancient Rome the emperor would leave his palace and walk the short distance to the games, there to watch gladiators fight in the arena. Long after the Roman Republic had died, the forms of the Republic remained: a senate still met, the old magistracies were still filled, the offices of state carried their republican names as though nothing had changed. It was a pleasant charade, and it suited everyone concerned. The fights themselves were not, for the most part, to the death. They were stylized professional combat, an entertainment staged to occupy a populace that had surrendered its republic and retained only its appetite for spectacle. Panem et circenses (bread and circuses), Juvenal called it, the formula by which a free people is kept content after it has stopped being free. Games were often given to mark the emperor’s birthday, a munus (public gift) from the ruler to the ruled. He arrived attended by his guard and by a retinue of servants, the entire apparatus arranged so that no spectator could mistake who was being honored. The fighting was the pretext. The emperor was the event. On an entirely unrelated note. On President Trump’s eightieth birthday, June 14, 2026, he hosted an Ultimate Fighting Championship card on the South Lawn of the White House. It was called UFC Freedom 250, a tribute to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and it featured seven fights in an Octagon erected a few yards from the Rose Garden. The fighters walked to the cage down West Wing corridors hung with presidential portraits, flanked by first responders and by Medal of Honor recipients, the nation’s highest decoration for valor repurposed as a processional. The United States Marine Band, “The President’s Own,” which normally lends its music to solemn occasions of state, provided the music for the evening. At one point the Marine Band performed the walk-out song of the fighter Diego Lopes, a Mexican number by Los Tucanes de Tijuana titled “La Chona,” which is a fine thing for the President’s Own to be doing on the lawn of the White House. Diego Lopes was one of the gladiators competing in honor of the emperor. (Sorry. The President. I keep making that mistake.) The service members in attendance served the Department of War. This is its name again, by the President’s order, after some decades of disuse. He preferred it to the Department of Defense, a title he judged insufficiently candid, and one cannot fault the instinct. The Romans never pretended their legions were for defense. A confident power calls the thing by its name. Because the procession included Medal of Honor recipients, to whom a salute is owed regardless of rank, the assembled personnel of the Department of War stood and saluted a line of cage fighters. Congress, which alone may rename a department, was not consulted, the President having concluded that he did not require its assent and very likely being correct. The crowd numbered around four thousand, hand-selected, and roughly twelve hundred of them were active-duty service members. They did not attend by accident. The Department issued guidance requiring that any service member who wished to sit on the South Lawn meet a waist-to-height ratio of 0.55 or less, along with all service-specific fitness standards, and pay his own way to Washington (CNN 2026). One defense official, explaining the criteria to CNN, summarized the requirement with admirable economy: no fat soldiers (CNN 2026). Another told CNN that senior leaders wanted the attending troops to look good on camera (CNN 2026). The Roman who selected his honor guard for the breadth of their shoulders would have understood the principle exactly. An emperor’s escort is not chosen for what it can do. It is chosen for how it appears while doing it. So the troops were trim, and the band played, and the decorated heroes stood in the corridor, and the President walked the short distance from the Oval Office to the cage to watch men punch, kick, elbow, knee, and wrestle one another toward submission. The rules of the sport are precise. A competitor may strike with fists, feet, elbows, and knees. He may not bite, gouge the eyes, strike the spine or the back of the skull, headbutt, or strike the groin. Civilization, as always, is a matter of knowing which blows are permitted. The picture above is real. It is not a photograph altered, nor an image generated by a machine. The men in the cage are real, the band is real, the saluting troops are real, and the building behind them, white and familiar and lit against the June dark, is the White House. A republic does not announce the hour of its decline. It schedules it, prints tickets, and checks the waistlines of the honor guard. For more helpful and high value thoughts, please sign-up for my sub-stack: https://stevenstrauss.substack.com/ References CNN. 2026. “Troops to Get Free Tickets to White House UFC Event, but Must Meet Weight Standards.” CNN Politics, May 29. Juvenal. 1992. The Satires. Translated by Niall Rudd. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Satire X, lines 77-81.) NBC News. 2025. “Trump Order Will Rebrand Defense Department as Department of War.” September 5. NBC News. 2026. “UFC Freedom 250 White House Fight: Trump Live Updates.” June 14. NPR. 2026. “Trump Celebrates 80th Birthday with an Iran Deal and UFC Cage Fights at the White House.” June 15. Washington Post. 2025. “Trump Launches War Department Rebrand Without Congressional Approval.” September 5. Washington Post. 2026. “Trump Marks 80th Birthday with White House UFC Showcase.” June 15. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/6/16/800056160/community/a-note-on-president-trumps-birthday/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/