When Newsweek asked me "Who do I wish was running for President," I thought the answer was pretty obvious. As in, "Do you like ice cream?" or "Is the Pope Catholic?" DUH-level obvious.
After all, if we've learned one thing from the past seven years, it's how much competence matters. Donald Trump's ineptitude led to cataclysm. Trump's own COVID-19 response leader said his incompetence killed more than 130,000 Americans, one of thousands of stupid decisions from someone who had no idea what he was doing and couldn't have cared less about government, other than as a reality show-esque ego trip, money grab, and vehicle for personal revenge.
Once we returned to leadership from someone who was experienced, knowledgeable, and sane, America reaped incredible rewards, including the most successful vaccination program in American history, getting our kids back in schools, the greatest single year of U.S. job creation, and the lowest unemployment in 50 years.
So the answer to the question seems clear: We should wish for a serious political professional with decades of proven government experience, right?
Nope. I went with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
Before you dismiss me as crazy, unserious, or both, hear me out.
Competence won't address our biggest problem. Joe Biden was one of the most seasoned and able government professionals ever elected, using his expertise to pass reams of legislation to rival the most productive periods of American government in history. He has accomplishments out the wazoo.
None of that is stopping almost half the country from wanting to return to an insurrectionist, autocratic, 91-counts-indicted man who a jury ruled was a rapist and who has promised to "terminate the Constitution."
In 2020, the country was a patient crashing on the operating table. Biden's Presidency stabilized it, but not what is afflicting its people.
Today, our biggest problem is the underlying disease: that so many are besotted with a malignant lunatic, and terrified of an anodyne figure like Biden. Trump supporters have become so warped as to simultaneously believe that Biden is a doddering dementia patient and a Dark Brandon evil genius. The more fascist Trump shrieks, the louder they cheer.
Four out of every 10 of us are in this state. We are not just a house divided. We are a house on fire. And the fault is not in our reality TV stars. It's in ourselves. We have to find a way to bring millions of Americans back to a place where we can go on together as a nation.
So the cure cannot be another dose of sane governance. The cure has to be medicine that breaks the addition. We have to wean people onto something benign.
Johnson is that methadone.
The Rock is a perfect bridge to reach our MAGA fellow Americans, a self-described "a six-four, bald, tattooed, half-Black, half-Samoan, tequila drinking, pick-up truck driving, fanny pack wearing guy."
Actually, we know that Trump fans are Rock fans. Maybe wrestling isn't your thing, and Fast and Furious isn't your speed. But they sure are for the people we need to bring back into the American democratic contract.
Johnson is one of the most popular people in the country, with the sixth most-followed Instagram account on Earth, for a reason. Forty-six percent of respondents told pollsters in 2021 that they would welcome seeing him the White House. He's also a gifted communicator, used to addressing millions of people on TV every week, improvising about one third of what he says on the spot.
And for a MAGA electorate that fetishizes the corpulent plutocrat Trump as a machine-gun wielding Rambo, how would they respond to GI Joe?
Johnson has addressed national conventions for both Republicans and Democrats, was sought out as a candidate by both parties, and yes, despite being an independent and generally staying above the fray, he passed the sanity test by endorsing Joe Biden in 2020.
Ask yourself: Can you think of anyone else who would fits these criteria and who could appeal so much to Trump people?
To be sure, there are serious objections here. But I think they're answerable.
First: Wouldn't we be trading one inane celebrity for another? No—they're not comparable. In 2016, Trump already had a decades-long public record of pathology: assaulting women, screwing over small business owners, operating a fraud charity, and driving everything he touched into bankruptcy or ruin. Dwayne Johnson has been a monumentally popular figure in America for two decades, subject to intense public scrutiny, and has none of that. His worst fault seems to be that he inflicted Baywatch on us.
Two: Even if we accept that he's more or less benevolent, isn't he still just a Hollywood actor? Yes, absolutely. Even the authors of the Draft Johnson website see him as CEO figurehead, needing a competent day-to-day governing partner to run the government. Since we're doing wish fulfillment here, let's stipulate that.
Third, and finally: Is this an argument that we should have The Rock over Joe Biden? No. At this point, the only thing that matters is defeating Trump and averting total dystopian disaster in 2024. The only way to do that now is to support Biden, and I gladly will.
But the truth is that even if we do defeat Trump next year, this may not all be over. Slobodan Milosevic launched the Balkan wars of the 1990s by revisiting a 600 year-old grievance. The Free Wales Army was perpetrating bombings in the 1960s to protest the loss of Welsh independence in 1284. Political grudges can linger for centuries, and serious analysts already believe we are on the brink of a second Civil War. Trump's demise may not avert that.
But what could is finding a way to coax the Trump movement back to normalcy. The best person—maybe the only person—who can do that is The Rock.
Matt Robison is a writer, podcast host, and former congressional staffer.
The views in this article are the writer's own.
