There are occasions when I wonder if I’ve either lost my mind or perhaps lived too long in this world and no longer belong here at all. This story is one of those which makes me think that both may be true. Axios is running a piece on Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, appearing on Capitol Hill to discuss military recruitment efforts and the XFL, the professional football league he co-owns. That’s all well and good. Something positive may come out of that conversation.
But this next bit, Johnson’s claim that “multiple” political parties “approached him last year to see if he would run for US president, after a poll revealed 46% of Americans would support his campaign,” makes me just want to unscrew my head and leave it on the coffee table. WTF is going on in this world where we live? Are we so abysmally stupid as a species that we’re going to vote for some media presence, some digital or cinema hero to lead us, as opposed to voting for educated, trained public servants with a track record? Maybe this is how the human species blinks out of existence. Maybe television is not our ruination at all, maybe it’s merely the mechanism which has exposed us for who and what we really are: a species so stupid that we don’t deserve to survive. When climate change began to get seriously out of control I began to think that way, then the election of Donald Trump exacerbated that feeling and now this may be the coup de grace.
Appearing as the first guest on Trevor Noah’s new Spotify podcast What Now?, the actor and former WWE wrestler said a 2021 poll of 30,000 American adults led to “the parties” contacting him to ask if he was interested in running at the end of 2022.
“That was an interesting poll that happened and I was really moved by that,” Johnson said. “I was really blown away and I was really honoured. I’ll share this little bit with you: at the end of the year in 2022, I got a visit from the parties asking me if I was going to run, and if I could run.
“It was a big deal, and it came out of the blue,” he added. “It was one after the other, and they brought up that poll, and they also brought up their own deep-dive research that would prove that should I ever go down that road [I’d be a real contender]. It was all very surreal because that’s never been my goal. My goal has never been to be in politics. As a matter of fact, there’s a lot about politics that I hate.”
However, Johnson, who has described himself as a “centrist” and “political independent” and publicly endorsed US president Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, has openly shared his interest in running in the past. In 2016 he told GQ: “I can’t deny that the thought of being governor, the thought of being president, is alluring.” A year later he told Variety the 2024 presidential campaign was a “realistic consideration”.
This is bad enough, but yes, indeed, it gets worse. That’s precisely what it does. Why am I even surprised?
His sitcom Young Rock even hinges around him running for US president in 2032, with Johnson playing his future self as he gives interviews about moments in his early life that structure every episode.
Responding to the aforementioned poll in 2021, Johnson wrote on Instagram: “I don’t think our Founding Fathers EVER envisioned a six-four, bald, tattooed, half-Black, half-Samoan, tequila drinking, pick up truck driving, fanny pack wearing guy joining their club – but if it ever happens it’d be my honour to serve you, the people.”
The rest of the article goes on to describe Johnson waffling, “If that’s ultimately what the people would want, then of course I would consider it,” oh and we are so honored and thrilled. Should we just send you the keys to the White House tomorrow, Sir, or should we go through the formality of an election? We don’t want to inconvenience you now.
And then it gets stupider still. There’s an opinion piece in the Washington Post pushing the notion of Dwayne Johnson as the “answer” to the “doom loop of Biden vs. Trump.” OMG.
For four years, I have been saying to anyone who will listen — not many people, I must admit — that America has a sure and happy pathway out of the doom loop of Biden vs. Trump, Trump vs. Biden, seemingly for the rest of eternity. This political hellscape worthy of Sartre’s “No Exit,” this zombie apocalypse, this death of imagination and hope. Johnson is that pathway. A man bigger than the Super Bowl is exactly what we need to break the cycle of despair.
Johnson for President! Many people I’ve tried this on think I am joking, because Dwayne Johnson is a movie star, among other things — and movie stars can’t be elected. Except by perhaps the largest electoral college margin since George Washington. (Looking at you, Ronald Reagan, who in 1984 won all the states but one.)
So, Johnson’s admission that “the parties” have approached him about jumping into the presidential race was music to my ears and should delight the American public. Many Republicans detest their party front-runner, Donald Trump, and many Democrats disdain their incumbent, Joe Biden. The solution is a unity campaign starring the gentle giant.
Again, I’m not joking. Admittedly, Johnson’s biography is not typical of presidential hopefuls, but in a nation sick of political dysfunction, that might be a feature, not a bug. As a candidate, he belongs to the post-Trump era, when personal celebrity and the ability to command attention is more important than a conventional résumé or party endorsement. Johnson is all the things Trump pretends to be: physically impressive, personally tough, widely liked. And unlike Biden, he has accomplished things other than running for office.
If you want to read the rest of this piece and you think your head won’t explode, do so with my blessings. Here are a few comments after the piece.
Gee, what a great idea. Let’s make Flavor Flav the Secretary of Defense while we’re at it. Maybe Taylor Swift as head of the EPA and Gary Busey as Secretary of Education, too.To be fair to Von Drehle, this clown idea isn’t much worse than most of those proposed by actually GOPQ lawmakers.
The presidency is not an entry level job.
