Inside the UFC Fight at the White House

The multiethnic liberal dream, for men

By Tack Leeward · June 18, 2026 · 6 min read

My first mistake: doubting the Knicks. I could have been in New York, climbing a flagpole, tonguing a West Village girlie pop. But, instead, my buddy Brett convinced me to join him for the Freedom 250 UFC fight in the swamp.

This is one connected motherfucker, so I assumed we’d be sitting ringside with Barron on the South Lawn. He let me down gently, relaying that even Pentagon top brass were fighting over those seats. Only the Fan Fest for us, on the Ellipse. A sideshow for the hoi polloi, open only to public lottery, unless you had an in, which Brett did.

Before I go further, it’s important to note that neither of us knows anything about UFC. Brett went to an Ivy. I am a coastal elite. We like sailing.

But even for non-UFC heads like us, Freedom 250 promised all sorts of delights in the hours before the fight card. Overpriced drinks, Logan Paul, random brand activations, and Monster Energy booth babes. After a lazy pregame at a stomp-clap-hey brewery, we booked a black car, which only could only penetrate four blocks away.

On the monument-lined walk, we started to understand the event demographics. A Rumble-host interviews a saw a lucha libre-masked man. An Indian family in saris watches Edgars on Lime scooters. Sweaty Canadian journalists struggle to get quotes. A white revert distributes Malcolm X pamphlets to baddie black women while inbred Pennsylvanians make out on the Smithsonian lawn.

In the drinks line, I complete my first-round analysis:

No women
Everyone has tattoos
Brand-new ethnic combinations
Father/son duos
A few women, mainly tortas

The alcohol line was tolerable because everyone else waited in other lines for goyslop brand experiences or D-lister photo opps. The Meta AI line was the longest, I guess to try on their AR glasses. As much as I wanted Zuck combat swag to display ironically at the office, Brett convinced me to continue our lap and wait for the line to go down. It never did.

For an event in front of the White House on the President’s birthday, there were shockingly few MAGA hats, and none of them bore the classic red. Didn’t see any America First hats either. The only other political slogan I saw was “Boats and Hoes ’74” on a cowboy hat. A few guys wore stars-and-stripes overalls, but overall patriotism was tempered. I’m an idiot for thinking this UFC Fan Fest would be anything but UFC fans.

The most popular fighter with the crowd was, without a doubt, Sean “Suga” O’Malley. His face was on every other shirt. Any mention of his name on stage drew wild hooting. Suga looks like a Lil Peep-era SoundCloud rapper: white, skinny, neon-dyed hair, horrendous face tats. He’s pro-weed, used to be vegan, and has an open relationship with his Latina wife. He’s the perfect icon for the multiracial Dinergoth Zoomers. The other name that got yells was underdog Justin Gaethje, who Brett called “Hans Christian Mexican” after looking him up. “This is K-pop for men,” he decided.

We finished our lap about the time Logan Paul and his 40-year-old sidekick, Mike, were on stage talking to some UFC commentary whore named Nina Drama. She said, “We all have generational trauma,” and they nodded. Immediately after, Logan and Mike brought up some inside baseball between Nina and a fighter. Everyone in the crowd started making a lewd hand gesture to simulate fingering. Brett was scandalized to see this happen on the White House lawn.

I zoned out and started crowd-watching again: white dads with full sleeves and Air Forces, buff castizos, chunky mestizos, cool Asians with wolf cuts, dork Asians in golf clothes, Mexican cowboys, Fat Joe-style wiggers (city), Post Malone-style wiggers (country), mulleted fentanyl couples whose entire vibe has been knocked off in Dimes Square, Dravidian frat boys (Virginia TKE), a ginger Orthodox Jew with a tallit and a trucker hat, a pale Pakistani hijabi with her ugly cousins, black guys of all types. Brett and I discussed what makes a Trump black guy vs. a Kamala black guy. I said “fathers,” but that’s obviously not right. Gang members love Trump the most, after black cops.

Any whiff I had of “America A”—even “America A-minus”—was an illusion. The clean-cut white men had calf tats, while the few well-groomed women had press passes. Far away from the stage, toward the food trucks serving flavorless pizza and fries, Republican staffers in suits and polos sat in safety circles.

After another lap trying to score free swag without a 40-minute wait in line, Brett and I went back to the main stage for the Army Band. We did not realize that this was different from the Marine Band. When a spunky Army woman came out singing “Misery Business” by Paramore, it was a surprise. The band ran through tasteful rock hits, from “Sweet Child o’ Mine” to “Dead or Alive.” From our view mid-field, the response from the crowd was unenthusiastic. The mood especially soured during “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!,” with very few of these macho men ironically singing along.

“They should do ‘Mo Bamba’; that will get the people going,” I joked.

Between events, the jumbotrons played ads for gambling and the military, interspersed with American history trivia, which was wasted on the attendees. At about this time, my family group chat lit up. My parents were seeing an opera after a day at the yacht club. I felt deep regret for my current circumstances. Even more so when we smelled pot, wafting over from a group of shirtless black youths.

“I can’t believe this is happening on the White House lawn,” Brett said, again.

Finally, the show began: Trump and Dana White lit up the screens, stomping through the White House to the ring. Joe Rogan bouncing up and down in his ridiculously short tie. The masses hollered and chanted “U-S-A!” Not to be a leftist, but this is when the divide between the actual White House event, on the South Lawn, and the Fan Fest, on the Ellipse, came into sharp view. The proles on our side; Mark Zuckerberg and the Marine Band on the other.

My Marxist analysis was interrupted by the Blue Angels doing a flyover. I love flyovers, so much so I considered joining Air Force ROTC until I realized I would be drug-tested. I felt a surge of patriotism for five seconds. Turning around to follow the flight path, I saw an Asian guy dressed like Jim Carrey in The Mask.

Brett and I went to get more beers, but the lines had ballooned. We decided we had seen enough and could watch the fights at another stomp-clap-hey brewery. As we exited, a chubby redhead woman was screaming into a megaphone, “TRUMP IS A PEDOPHILE!” The marshals laughed along with us, one saying, “Y’all can go join her fire and brimstone.”

Somewhat sobered up, Brett and I grabbed Lime bikes and cruised through the empty streets, past bored cops. We rode right up to the Capitol grounds unmolested. I looked at this strangely transformed symbol of democracy and wondered who would control it after the midterms, and whether Suga O’Malley fans compose a decisive voting bloc.