‘Idiocracy’ Fans Are Feasting After Hulk Hogan’s Insane Speech at the RNC

This year’s Republican National Convention is brought to you by Brawndo — it’s got what plants crave!

It’s become a refrain that’s almost as tired as the whole “The Simpsons predicted every single news event ever” meme that reliably takes over Twitter in the wake of the latest tragedy: According to fans of the 2006 cult comedy classic Idiocracy, the world is actually, rapidly heading down the path toward replacing water with a Gatorade knockoff and watching Ow! My Balls! on network television. However, and ignoring the fact that mid-2000s America was already dumb enough to warrant such a comparison to Mike Judge’s satirical vision for the country in the 26th century (see every episode of Manswers), there’s certainly plenty of juice in the idea that society seems to be racing toward the point where the Extreme Court will encourage the public execution of political prisoners by monster truck rally (see the current Supreme Court). 

Following the events of the recently concluded 2024 Republican National Convention, the “Idiocracy wasn’t supposed to be an instruction manual” crowd had plenty of evidence to support their dark prediction for our country’s future, but no one figure from the four-day conference in Milwaukee better emulated the dumbest possible timeline than one Hulk Hogan, who introduced former president Donald Trump with a familiarly hyper-masculine ridiculousness:

On top of the hilariously on-the-nose symbolism of The Hulkster tearing apart an American flag to uncover the logo for the Trump/Vance ticket for 2024, it really does seem like the WWE legend modeled his speech after Terry Crews’ performance as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho — or, alternatively, Judge could have conceptualized the character as a professional wrestler who used his popularity to become a politician, sort of like a much more stupid Jesse Ventura situation.

In fact, Judge even planned to run ads satirizing Trump's political career in the run-up to the 2016 election that would have featured Crews reprising his role as President Camacho. Though the commercials never made it to air, Crews revealed to Business Insider that the spots would have featured him wrestling in a cage match against multiple presidential candidates.

Now, the Republican Party is apparently taking a page out of President Camacho’s book to reclaim the White House, though I’m not so sure Hogan was aware of his astounding similarities to the Idiocracy character when he tore off his shirt in front of the roaring Republican crowd last night. After all, I don’t believe that Hogan would ever willingly invite the internet to compare him to a Black guy.