The Rock is on a Roll
It's no stranger than Donald Trump running for president, people
When Jack Hughes wrote a humorous piece about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson running for president a year ago, he didn’t mean to ‘Beetlejuice’ it into existence. Now it’s no laughing matter.
by Jack Hughes
One of my very first pieces in The Experiment, published a year ago this week, was a fictional State of the Union address delivered in the year 2030 by then-President Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I picked Johnson to give my paean on post-pandemic life because I wanted it to be non-partisan and I knew that he’d occasionally mused about running for president. Since it was written, though, it’s become a realistic scenario.
After George Floyd was killed in late May, Johnson issued an impassioned plea for leadership to his 229 million Instagram followers. His impactful message was liked and shared both across the country and around the globe – its reach further amplified as it was aired by media outlets worldwide. The genuine, heartfelt message was also interpreted as an early political intervention by someone who is interested in office.
Then, in late September, Johnson made his first-ever presidential endorsement – in which he announced that he’d be voting for Joe Biden. Identifying himself as an independent centrist, Johnson said he’d voted in the past for both Democrats and Republicans. (While he’d been critical of Donald Trump, fans and followers would remember that he had addressed the Republican National Convention back in 2000.)
Lastly, this February, Johnson’s network sitcom premiered on NBC. The premise of the show, Young Rock, is that Johnson is running for president in the year 2032 and uses a tell-all interview to share stories – via flashbacks – of some of the formative experiences of his life. Given the series is autobiographical, it had the same effect on the speculation of his running in real life as throwing rocket fuel on a raging fire.
When Newsweek later ran a presidential opinion poll showing 46% of Americans would vote for Johnson, his reaction was just shy of confirmation. As Johnson told Willie Geist on NBC’s Sunday Today: “I do have a goal to unite the country…if [running] is what the people want, then I will do that.” Assuming, then, he’s answered the question of will he run, all that’s really left to answer is when and how will Johnson do it?
Let’s start with ‘when.’ Young Rock says he won’t run until 2032, but the momentum building behind the idea can’t be sustained for a decade. No, he’s clearly aiming for an earlier go. Back in 2017, Johnson told Variety: “Realistically, as we go into 2018, when you look at my slate as we’re developing and shooting into 2019 and 2020, the slate goes deep into 2021, so it feels like the realistic consideration would be 2024.”
This leaves us with the ‘how.’ Like any presidential hopeful, candidate Johnson has three choices: He can run as a Democrat; he can run as a Republican; or he can run as a third-party candidate. Given that Johnson endorsed Joe Biden a little over eight months ago, it would seem somewhat unlikely that he intends to run against Biden if Biden were to run for re-election. So, let’s assume Biden doesn’t seek a second term.
Johnson has said both in fictional Young Rock interviews and actual real-life interviews that his goal is to unite the country. This may suggest some kind of unity ticket third party run – probably the most difficult path to the presidency. Third party candidates, even celebrity candidates (see: Kanye 2020), face uphill climbs. Still, he can try to cobble together a ‘big tent’ centrist coalition of Independents, Democrats, and Republicans.
If, however, Johnson wants to run as a Republican, he’ll need to mend some fences. His criticism of Trump and endorsement of Biden guarantees he’d get a rough ride from the right. Still, Republican voters have proven open to candidates with no elected experience or partisan pedigree if they can transform their high profile into political support. They nominated Trump in 2016, Eisenhower in 1952, and Willkie in 1944.
Of these, the best model for Dwayne is Dwight. Johnson isn’t a war hero like Ike, but he espouses the same muscular, moderate free enterprise/anti-industrial complex conservatism Eisenhower exhibited throughout his ‘hidden hand’ presidency. Ike’s political philosophy lived on in Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, and, especially, Nelson Rockefeller. Johnson could put the ‘Rock’ back in ‘Rockefeller Republican.’
The third option, running as a Democrat, seems the safest path and the one with the most options for Johnson. Yes, in this scenario, he’d have to challenge Kamala Harris for the nomination. Still, Harris’ unsuccessful run for the nod against Biden back in 2019-2020 suggests she won’t run unopposed no matter what Johnson does – and, in this, there’s a precedent (Senator Bill Bradley ran against Vice President Al Gore).
Johnson could put the ‘Rock’ back in ‘Rockefeller Republican.’
Let’s play this one out. Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats haven’t nominated someone without any prior political experience in over a century. Moreover, Johnson told Stephen Colbert in 2018 that before he ran he had to “get some experience and understand policy.” (Interestingly, Colbert recently pleaded with Johnson not to run for president – as the job has lots of paperwork and “we all know paper beats Rock.”)
How, then, can Johnson get some relevant government experience between now and 2024? The good news for him is that he’s got roots all over the country from Hawaii and Pennsylvania to Florida and California. Let’s start with Florida. Johnson has lots of connections to the Sunshine State, including his time as a football player for the University of Miami Hurricanes when they won a National Championship in 1991.
With a home in Miami and having earlier lived in the Tampa Bay area – which boasts the highest per capita number of retired WWE wrestlers in the world – Johnson could mount a credible run for Florida Governor against Trump heir Ron DeSantis in 2022. Imagine how Johnson’s presidential stock would rise if he were able to unseat the leading 2024 Republican hopeful while seizing a must-win GOP battleground state.
If not Florida, what about California? Johnson recently dropped $27.8 million on another home in North Beverly Park, Los Angeles. The Golden State has two golden opportunities for Johnson to secure higher office. First, Alex Padilla was named to fill Kamala Harris’ vacant U.S. Senate seat when she became Vice President – but the office will be on the 2022 ballot. Johnson could easily set himself up to seize it.
The problem with Johnson waiting until 2022, either in Florida or California, is he wouldn’t be sworn-in until 2023. That would mean that he wouldn’t get much in the way of actual experience as he’d need to start running for president almost from the moment he took the oath of office. No, ideally, Johnson needs to get into office sooner – and that brings me to the second ‘golden’ opportunity for him in California.
Senator Dianne Feinstein has been politely nudged towards a political exit for some time, with many colleagues gently suggesting she’s perhaps no longer in her prime. Those calls have become more urgent given the split in the Senate and the ongoing effort to recall Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. If Newsom falls to a Republican and then Feinstein retires, the new Governor will name a Republican to her seat.
A Hollywood scripted scenario would be for Feinstein to retire before the recall vote with Newsom then appointing Johnson to fill her seat. (For many years California had a Senator Boxer, why not a senator wrestler?) Johnson would then have a couple of years in higher office before he began his presidential run. It would also help his odds for the nomination as it’d put Harris’ home-state Democratic primary into play.
One doesn’t have to look back very far in American history to see reasons why we shouldn’t think any this is particularly implausible. Moreover, and I say this humbly, I can’t help but note that if Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson happens to win the 2024 presidential election, and then secure a second term in 2028, my fictional 2030 State of the Union from will look downright prophetic. To that end, I say Run Rock Run!
Jack Hughes is a communications consultant based in Canada. His previous contributions to The Experiment include “Same of Thrones,” “Tippecanoe and Agnew Anew,” “Harris / Shuri 2020,” “Bidenfeld,” “Firth and Firthiness,” “The Ballot of Bill McKay,” and “The World Wants ‘The West Wing,’” among others. His inexplicably extensive writings on Dan Quayle are “The Unusual Suspect,” “The Unusual Suspect II,” “The GOPfather” and “Porqua, CoQau?” His most recent contribution was “Biden Should Expect the Unexpected.” Connect with him on LinkedIn here.
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