Who can beat The Donald? The Rock.[/COLOR]
Opinion Who can beat The Donald? The Rock.By David Von Drehle
Deputy opinion editor and columnist
November 15, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. EST
In February 2022, the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals played a football game known as the Super Bowl. Ever heard of it? I’m kidding, of course — the Super Bowl is perhaps the broadest common interest of American society. It’s an unofficial national holiday, and far more popular than most of the official ones. There’s something for everyone: the game, the halftime show, the commercials, the gambling, the watch parties.
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But the National Football League — a multibillion dollar entertainment juggernaut — decided that, after LV Super Bowls (that’s 55 to the non-Romans in the audience), number LVI needed something more. A boost. It needed someone to introduce it. Amp it up. The Super Bowl needed someone bigger than the Super Bowl to say: “Hey! Look at this!” And who’s bigger than the Super Bowl?
Dwayne Johnson.
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.
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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.
Alyssa Rosenberg: Dwayne Johnson says he might want to run for president. He could actually win.
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.
Born in 1972 (the same year Biden was first elected to the U.S. Senate and Trump was attracting his first attention from federal prosecutors), Johnson’s family was professional wrestling royalty. After playing college football at the University of Miami and a brief stint in the Canadian professional league, he entered the family business, performing in the WWE under various names before settling on his ultimate identity: “The Rock.”
Handsome and built like a cartoon superhero, Johnson has a work ethic to match his natural charisma, and an easy way with fame. His jump to Hollywood was as natural as organic shampoo; there, he quickly picked up where Arnold Schwarzenegger left off, mixing action films — including the insanely popular “Fast and Furious” franchise — with gentler roles, such as the “Jumanji” sequels and Disney’s “Moana.” Like the Governator, he became one of the highest-paid actors in the world, and one of the best-known faces on the planet.
He also co-founded an array of successful businesses: ZOA energy supplements for the fitness market; an XFL football franchise; a popular tequila brand; a film-production company; and so on. Forbes estimated his income was $270 million in 2022 — well on his way to becoming the self-made billionaire Trump pretends to be.
What are the Rock’s politics? Beats me. Reportedly registered as an independent, Johnson has attended presidential nominating conventions of both parties. His charitable work with at-risk youth puts him in touch with issues that animate many Democrats, as does his personal story of second and third chances after his youthful brushes with the law. On the other hand, when he discusses the keys to his own success — hard work, discipline, risk-taking — he speaks the language of many traditional Republicans.
His national security inexperience would be counterbalanced by his unsurpassed personal popularity around the world. Imagine the impact on U.S.-China relations if the new president was a man whose films have grossed more than $1.3 billion in Chinese theaters.
What I do know is that Johnson is a boss who asks at business meetings, “How do we deliver joy?” Who says, “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice." A man who says he can’t run for president this year because he wants to be a good father — a sentiment I admire even as I wish he would reconsider. American politics is sleepwalking toward disaster. Dwayne Johnson is the man to wake us up.
. And on Fox News nonetheless.
