Tweeting Your Way to the White House #Paid
It shouldn't come as a surpurse to anyone that following former reality TV star Donald Trump’s unfathomable run to the presidency, it’s got other celebrities thinking of throwing their hats into the race. Kanye West, Oprah Winfrey, Dan Bilzerian and Jay-Z are celebrities that have had their names thrown around social media. Yeezy himself even announced at one of his concerts that he will run for President in 2020, but one celebrity that has flown a bit under the radar is Dwayne Johnson. The Rock publicly stated the he would consider running for office, but does he like any other of these celebrities have a legit shot at winning? The short answer is yes. The longer answer, which I will explain, shines some light on why President Trump might be followed by President Rock.
Now, while the thought of a President Dwayne Johnson may sound absolutely absurd it’s actually alot of plausible than you think. Someone like Dwayne Johnson is a public figure, and has almost 100 million Instagram followers and over 12 million twitter followers. Someone with that level of following certainly would have the platform needed to get his message out there. This is exactly what helped out Donald Trump and his now famous twitter account. He had the platform that he was able to preach his message to his nearly 50 million followers. If Dwayne Johnson was able to do something similar on his Twitter or Instagram it is quite possible that he was destroy the primaries. Having an already established following will help you in numerous ways. First it will give you the platform you need to appeal to voters. Two, if your following in big enough like Johnson’s is it will give you a good chunk of voters already. Three, nothing gets people out to polls like the celebrity posting on their social medias telling them too.
It’s a no brainer for The Rock. If ANYONE has the chance to dethrone President Trump it would be someone with a stronger social media presence than him. During the 2016 election voter turn out was still very low, an all time low in fact. However there was one group who had a recor turn out, the Millenials. The Millenials came out in droves during that election, a record estimate of 24 million Millenials cast ballots. That’s a 4% increase in Millenial turnout since 2012. What does this have to do with The Rock winning the presidency? Everything. Judging from the results of the previous elections, Millienials played a decisive role in the out come of three key states: Nevada, New Hampshire and Michigan. Youth votes gave Hillary Clinton the much needed boost to win both New Hampshire and Nevada, and kept the race for Michigan close despite Trump being the overwhelming favourite. This crop of voters from ages 18–29 are The Rock’s best chance of actually getting voters and support. It’s safe to say in a head to head race between The Rock and Donald Trump, Trump has the 45–64 and the 65+demographics locked up. While there is no doubt that The Rock will get a small percentage of voters from those demographics, The Rock will need to work very hard in order to win these votes and win the required states.
The Rock is one of those celebrities that does have a real good shot at winning the primaries, but if he chooses to run as a Republican he will have tough chance of stealing those already red states from Trump. The Rock will most likely have a great shot at flipping Florida as it’s his home state, but there is still ways to go. Although the election is still ways away, early head to head polls show the The Rock up by 5 points over Trump. What have we learned from all of this? It’s that in the era of social media, young people are becoming more and more important during elections. As 65+ demographics are going down, 18–29 demographics are going up in droves. The Rock winning might sound absolutely stupid, but in the era of Trump and social media some one as socially prolific as The Rock might actually have a chance to levy his social media following in order to sweep the elections. Unless the Democrats find their holy grail candidate, the Republicans will most likely hold the White House in 2020. The question remains however, will it be President Trump or President Johnson holding the White house.
Works Cited
https://www.salon.com/2017/05/16/the-rock-for-president-2020-trump-dwayne-johnson/
