The ‘Progressive Liberal’ a Wrestling Heel for the Trump Era

In the early 1980s, professional wresting relied on an Iranian sheikh and various large men with Russian accents to draw the ire of fans. In the late 1990s, an arrogant, millionaire boss served as the magnet for boos.

Today, in a sign of the times, a wrestler calling himself the “Progressive Liberal” now feels the heat.

Performing for an outfit called Appalachian Mountain Wrestling, the Progressive Liberal predictably makes the audience his enemy. His moves include smugness, condescension, and whining, none of which do him much good in the ring but they all do wonders for his heel persona.

“You people need to be reprogrammed,” the Progressive Liberal lectures Eastern Kentucky wrestling fans. “You continually vote against your own interests.”

He wears a “Not My President” shirt, corrects the pronunciation (“creek” and not “crick”) of Appalachians, and refers to people he dislikes as “Fox News maggots.” He informs Kentuckians that they need to reject coal in favor of clean energy. He tells them to trade in their “bullets” for his “bullet points of knowledge.”

Interestingly, a graph shared by Clay Travis indicates that WWE fans skew Democrat in their voting (but they turn out to vote in smaller proportions than the fan bases of every other “sport” examined). Still, the wrestling audiences, at least in Eastern Kentucky, despise the Progressive Liberal. Perhaps he morphs into a cool heel should his wrestling outfit ever venture north on the Appalachian Trail to Vermont.

On Friday, the Progressive Liberal fights at the Wolfe County High School basketball court in a “Crybaby” match. One senses the Progressive Liberal receives as much support in that gymnasium on a Friday night in June as progressive liberals do in other Eastern Kentucky high school gyms that double as polling places on a Tuesday afternoon in November.