In 2017, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, best known for his career as a professional wrestler, said in an interview that he was seriously considering running for president. Reactions were mixed. The wrestler-turned-actor had a background in show business. Surely America wouldn’t ever elect a mere wrestler to the presidency! Who wants a president known for dropping “The Peoples’ Elbow” on opponents? A president who picks up and throws people seems gauche, doesn’t it?
If Dwayne Johnson were to be elected, he wouldn’t be the first wrestling president (that was George Washington), nor the first president to be find his way into the public eye through show business. It would be unusual for him to win a major party nomination as a political outsider who has not held elective office before, but Republicans do occasionally nominate such (c.f. Wendell Wilkie in 1940, Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, and Donald Trump in 2016).
The first president to come out of show business was Abraham Lincoln, who became famous as a wrestler before he started his political career. His most famous matches happened within a couple of years of his first run for the state legislature of Illinois, giving him experience with public spectacle and providing some of the foundation for the public image that he built before becoming president. Lincoln’s skill at wrestling was a subject of active discussion during his Senate bid in 1858 as well as his successful bid for the presidency in 1860.
More recently, former professional wrestler Jesse “The Body” Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota in 1998 and former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California in 2003. Acting seems to be a part of this pipeline; both of them had also branched out into acting, filming numerous action movies in the 1980s.
Arnold wasn’t the first movie star to be elected governor of California, though: Actor Ronald Reagan had managed it in 1966.
Show business presidents
Ronald Reagan wasn’t just the star of Bedtime for Bonzo and governor of California. He became President of the United States. Ronald Reagan hasn’t been the only show business president.
When speculation about Dwayne Johnson’s presidential ambitions started, Donald Trump was president. Before running for president, Donald Trump had become a fixture on television on The Apprentice, playing the role of the host on fourteen seasons of widely-watched reality television. His television personality provided the foundation of his public persona as a politician.
Fame is an asset in a democratic election, and show business is one way to generate fame. Show business is also a way to establish a public persona. Donald Trump had first become famous as a businessman, but it was his public persona on The Apprentice that really provided him with a strong connection with Republican primary voters.
Playing a president on TV
Part of what has given the speculation over Dwayne Johnson’s presidential ambition legs is that he played a 2032 presidential candidate on a comedy show. We do live in a world where playing a president on television can lead to becoming president; even if it hasn’t happened in the United States, that happened recently in Ukraine, where an actor who once played president on television ran for office, won, and became president: Volodymyr Zelensky.
Historians have not rendered a final but it appears that Volodymyr Zelensky will go down as a highly capable leader under the test of Russia’s invasion. Some of the skills required of a president in a time of crisis are perhaps not so different from those of an actor: The president needs to connect with the people, reassure them, and rally them to action.