If you’re a ‘Real American’, you’re in with Trump. What does that really mean?

When Hulk Hogan took the stage at the Fiserv Forum for the final night of the Republican National Convention, he said the vibe was so electric that he felt like he was back in his WWE days, wrestling Andre the Giant.

He’s “in a room full of real Americans, brother,” he added, before ripping his shirt open to reveal a Trump-Vance shirt,

The line probably went over the head of plenty of attendees. Conservatives have talked about “Real America” — embodied by the heartland, suburbia, farms and churches with steeples — and “Real Americans” for decades, contrasting it with Democrats and their non-white, non-Christian, non-heterosexual, unmarried, decadent city-dwellers. And the cleverness of the slightly altered term “Real American” is that it is porous enough to include formerly out-groups, which is how Republicans have sought elide allegations of racism and grow their support of non-white voters throughout the week in Milwaukee.

But anyone who has a cursory understanding of pro-wrestling probably found themselves humming Hogan’s immortal entrance theme.

“I am a real American. Fight for the rights of every man. Fight for what’s right. Fight for your life,” it goes.

For decades, these lyrics echoed through arenas, open-air and closed, as Hogan, the handle-bar mustached hero of pro-wrestling who earned his 24-inch pythons by saying his prayer and eating his vitamins, walked into the ring right before summarily ripping his shirt off and delivering a leg drop. Its spanky guitar, hyper-nationalistic lyrics and bopping beat echoed the excesses of the 1980s that Hogan and a brash businessman from Queens named Donald Trump embodied.

It that was during a time of peak US-led capitalism, when Americans seemed to have a clear idea of