We all remember when the news of Dwayne The Rock Johnson running for president broke a couple of months ago. Even though the actor only said this as some kind of a joke, some people took it more seriously, especially after he had stated in a May GQ article “I think it’s a real possibility.” For a moment, it might have seemed that the dust has settled, but we’ve learned that some people still firmly believe in this scenario and are even eager to support it in public. Namely, a man from Utah named Leo Dirr started the “Rock the White House” campaign in order to inspire the actor to run for president in 2024. “My goal is to encourage The Rock to run for president. My desire is to show The Rock that the country needs him and believes in him,” he explained.
Furthermore, Dirr confirmed that he took the news of Johnson’s candidacy seriously from the very beginning. He said: “Whenever I saw that news item that said he really might run for president, I never felt that strongly about any candidate. It’s weird because he wasn’t an official candidate, (but) I had this feeling like I absolutely want this to happen.”
Leo Dirr thinks that people have become apathetic and that they need someone to change that. Clearly, he is sure that Dwayne Johnson is the right person to do that. “I’m going to be pretty honest … I think this goes for a lot of people, a lot of us are pretty apathetic, we feel disenfranchised with respect to the political process, and it’s for that reason, we don’t feel like there are a lot of politicians, a lot of people that are running for office that we can really trust and believe in.” He said how he sees it and then added: “What I see in him [Johnson], is a good, decent, kind human being who I believe cares about other people, who would give an earnest effort to put the interests of the people and the country ahead of his own interests and special interests. I see him as someone who can be a strong leader without being a bully. I see him as more of a diplomat than a tyrant.”
Not only does this man believe in Johnson so much that he started the campaign, but he also thought that it would be the right decision to make a mural as a part of that campaign. He commissioned Dawn Taylor, a contemporary artist, to paint a mural which features Dwayne Johnson together with Jimmy Fallon, Tom Hanks, and Betty White.
“People are visual, especially people on the internet — they’re bored, everything has to be fast, just quick visual representation of an idea that could catch people’s attention and draw people’s interest into the broader idea,” he said. Dirr also pointed out that his original idea was to make Betty White the painting’s focal point, as he simply stated that “the most important part of painting is Betty White.” Here’s how he explained this: “For me, Betty White is what ties the whole thing together, because in my mind the common thread between those four individuals is they are all kind, decent human beings first and foremost, and Betty White is the poster girl for kindness and decency.”
Dawn Taylor herself admitted that she was immediately intrigued by Dirr’s idea. “I thought it was pretty interesting, I think the idea putting comedians on Mount Rushmore … I don’t mean for it to be sacrilegious towards our country. But those people who are now on Mount Rushmore didn’t think our country would be where it is today,” Taylor said.
In addition to the mural, Dirr’s campaign also includes a “T-shirt project.” More precisely, Dirr has a plan of distributing 10,000 Rock the White House T-shirts. “To me, that would just be a simple, powerful way to connect with a lot of people in a very short amount of time, to give 10,000 Rock The White House T-shirts. You would touch a lot more than 10,000 people,” he explained.
Finally, Dirr concluded saying: “I really believe in this guy. We need him at this time in our nation to lead the nation.”
