The downbeat response to Franklin Graham’s staid, conventional address to the GOP convention immediately following the spectacle the Hulkster just put on has convinced me that we are never going back to conventional GOP conventions again.
A serious convention can afford a few entertainers. My quarrels with this convention are not about letting Hulk Hogan do his thing.
Yes, that Hogan appearance was embarrassing. Yes, it is evidence we are not a serious nation. But also, it was kinda awesome.
Well, Hulk Hogan did not disappoint; he gave us exactly what we remembered and what the audience wanted.
Kind of disillusioning as a child of the 1980s for him to come out playing the role of Hulk Hogan and then reveal he’s gonna talk under his real name, Terry Bollea, now.
Okay, I’m being snarky, but there are probably a decent number of Generation X Americans who are relishing this piping hot serving of 1980s nostalgia.
Hulk Hogan doing the “as an entertainer, I can no longer stay silent” thing is some seriously sly satire of celebrity political pronouncements.
The discussion about politics imitating pro wrestling got a bit too real when Hulk Hogan did his signature shirt rip to reveal a Trump-Vance tank top.
As Hulk Hogan screams as loud as he can and rips off his shirts, I find myself missing the quiet dignity and high-minded intellectual stimulation of Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair.
It never stops being strange that the people most insistent on turning the page on the politics of the 1980s cannot let 1980s celebrities leave the stage.
That said: c’mon, how can you not get pumped up by a Hulk Hogan speech doing the full Hulk experience?