Only one person can bring our nation together again
I’ve said it before, and I’m going to say it again as the Jan. 6 committee kicks into high gear, the midterm elections loom, gas prices are through the roof and inflation is causing pain for pretty much everyone middle class and below. To paraphrase Princess Leia of “Star Wars,” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is our only hope.
Yes, that’s right. The Committee to Nominate Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for president of these here United States continues its push. And while it’s easy to dismiss this as the ramblings of a middle-aged doofus, understand this: When I bring this up in polite company, the first reaction is laughter. But after a few minutes, I usually have managed to get the person to agree to volunteer for the 2024 push.
The basic math is simple: Everyone likes The Rock. And that, in these trying times, counts for almost everything. We are a fractured country (more on that in a moment) and the office of the presidency has the power to unite us. Name one other person in America who might unite us more than Johnson. I’ll wait.
Yeah. Didn’t think you’d come up with one. Moving on, then.
Johnson is on record as saying he might be interested. He’s talked about it on social media, he talked about it in a Vanity Fair article. He’s got trial balloons floating all over the place. So an actual, honest-to-goodness campaign is on the table.
A quick word for the naysayers out there: As evidenced by the presidency of Donald Trump, anyone can do the job, even would-be autocrats. Experience is not necessary. You, me, The Rock, that guy over there picking his nose, your Aunt Ruth — anyone can be president.
Apparently there are enough checks and balances that things won’t completely, totally, and irrevocably go off the rails. (And besides: The Rock doesn’t strike me as an autocrat. Anyway, back to the positives …)
He’s the freaking Rock. Also: About our fractured country — for the first time in my memory, the country isn’t split in half along political lines. It’s split three ways.
WAY 1: The insane wing of the Republican party, the one that thinks the election was stolen and the Jan. 6 insurrection was a peaceful protest, the one that wants Trump installed as Leader for Life.
WAY 2: The insane wing of the Democrats, the one that wants tampon dispensers in boys bathrooms, thinks “breastfeeding” is a triggering word, wants to wipe everyone’s college debt clean, wants to defund the police, and on and on.
Before I go further: I don’t want to make a false equivalency between Way 1 and Way 2, as Way 1 is much worse for the country — my opinion — than Way 2. But both Ways are problematic, as if either one got everything they wanted … well, to quote Axl Rose (yes, I’m quoting both Princess Leia and Axl Rose in a column about the potential presidency of The Rock): What’s so civil about war, anyway? Point being: These fringes — which aren’t so fringey anymore — will never give a little to take a little. Which brings me to Way 3, otherwise known as The People’s Coalition …
WAY 3: The majority of us, who are looking around the country like the John Travolta GIF from “Pulp Fiction.” I’ve previously labeled this group “The Reasonables,” and all we want is to Make America Reasonable Again. We are the Purple People. And I promise you we are the majority.
And for The Reasonables to seize the day, there has to be a major party candidate who is a Reasonable him or herself, and is able to pull voters from the other side of the imaginary Reasonable divide.
And at this point in time, there is no one who can do this except Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and I’m not joking even a little bit.