It’s a sad but undeniable fact: When the Republican presidential nominee tries to seem “hip,” it invariably backfires.
To a certain extent, one could argue that the media-Hollywood-Democrat complex has never helped them out either, particularly when Bill Clinton was asked — a few years before the question of what was going on with what was under his clothes would be a bit like Chekhov’s gun in the series of events that led to his impeachment — on MTV whether he wore boxers or briefs.
Back in 1984, for instance, then-President Ronald Reagan made what was arguably the biggest unforced error of an otherwise slam-dunk campaign in which he praised the patriotism of a then au courant pop hit: “America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire, New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about.”
The song in particular he was talking about was Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” — which, even a cursory glance of the lyrics will reveal, isn’t a rah-rah American anthem but a pointed, decidedly non-patriotic (if perhaps not unpatriotic) critique about how the United States had abandoned Vietnam vets. Even after a historic landslide victory in which he won 40 states, the “Born in the USA” gaffe persists 40 years later.
In 2012, GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said that one of his favorite bands was Rage Against the Machine, a vulgar multi-platinum, multi-millionaire, multi-socialist rap-rock outfit which, in addition to constantly calling for violent revolution in totally unambiguous terms, once compared conservative talk radio to a modern Vietnam War where “men grabbin’ they mics and stuff ’em into the womb” to take away abortion rights.
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Ryan would later claim he liked the music but not the lyrics, according to The Atlantic, which is a bit like saying you like Marx words but not his manifesto. (It also prompted the group’s guitarist to say, “Well, I don’t care for Paul Ryan’s sound or his lyrics.” Not that I find Tom Morello appealing in any way, shape or form — but, well, touché.)
I mention all of this by way of preamble to note that trying to force the media to treat conservative ideas as Gucci (that’s cool, in modern teen parlance) always ends in cringe (that’s cringe, in modern teen parlance). But we don’t learn — which is why the fact model and reality TV star Amber Rose will be one of the guests at the Republican National Convention next week is a deeply stupid one.
Rose is best known for being an ex-girlfriend of Kanye West’s, who she split from in 2010. (West, one presumes, was not invited to the convention for, um, reasons.) However, in addition to this, she’s appeared as a model for numerous brands and is also a so-called “video vixen” — a term used for females who populate hip-hop videos mostly based on their pulchritudinous nature and/or provocative matter of dress.
Rose is also an “author,” although I’m not entirely sure that she’s read a page of — much less written — her 2015 tome “How to Be a Bad B****.” No word yet on whether there’ll be a book signing at the RNC.
Should Rose be disinvited from speaking at the RNC?
And, as numerous reports point out, Rose has a dubious history around … well, more or less everything.
Take, for instance, the presumptive GOP nominee at the convention, Donald Trump. According to Fox News, this was Rose’s take on him back in 2016: “”Man, f*** the fact he’s old, and f*** the fact that he was on TV,” she said, instead calling Trump out as a “sexual predator.”
“More recently, however, Rose has posted photos to social media of herself in a bikini wearing a ‘MAGA’ hat, endorsed the presumptive GOP nominee in May and shared another photo of herself with the former president and former first lady Melania Trump,” the outlet noted.
“Is Donald Trump not for women’s rights issues? – He’s trying to Make America Great Again – that’s for women too,” she told TMZ, adding that “I think [getting convicted in New York] helps him more” because of the obvious “injustice.”
“We just did our research and we’re not brainwashed anymore by the left,” she said.
OK, that’s fair. If only that were it.
On an appearance on “The Jason Lee Podcast” in March, Rose made it clear that she wasn’t just a hardcore atheist but that she professed admiration for Satanism.
“I’m not a Satanist… Satanists are just atheists as well, but they’re just more political. OK. They, they have, like — it’s actually a very rational, logical religion. They help a lot of people, a lot of women to get abortions in Southern states that, you know, where they’re illegal,” she said.
“I realized that I was an atheist. I just believe in science. I believe in evolution,” Rose said during the interview. “I don’t believe that God exists at all.”
Amber Rose Declares She’s an Atheist, calls Satanism a “very rational, logical religion”. “They help a lot of women get abortions.”
Amber Rose is scheduled to speak at the Trump-led RNC 2024.
Amber Rose (@DaRealAmberRose), in a March 2024 interview with Jason Lee, revealed she… pic.twitter.com/YKQZnPYRVt
— MiddleMaga.com (@StucknDaMid) July 9, 2024
Rose is also the founder of the “Amber Rose SlutWalk Festival,” one of many similarly titled events which marchers attempt to combat sexual misconduct on the part of men by dressing provocatively in order to make the point that no level of revealing attire excuses sexual assault. This is indeed true, but an event called a “SlutWalk” generally isn’t the way to impress that point, at least in this writer’s estimation. But I digress.
Then there’s another matter of sexuality — especially transgenderism, which, let’s face it, will play a large part in the cultural battles at the RNC in Milwaukee this coming week. Rose can best be described as pansexual — or could in the past — since she says she’s been with both men, women, and transgender men.
To be fair, again, this is from an older appearance, too, this one on bisexual comedienne Margaret Cho’s podcast in 2016.
“The women that I like are real masculine … So I like a really butch girl,” Cho said, according to BET.
“I used to date a trans man, actually. So I find that hot as well,” Rose responded.
It’s unclear who invited her to speak, but it’s not exactly turning out to be the best move.
And again, it’s not as if Amber Rose is a household name — at least not on the level of Springsteen or Rage Against the Machine, which have sold 70 million and 16 million albums total, respectively. No, neither were invited to the Republican National Convention in 1984 or 2012. But then, the GOP is trying to seem cool by inviting a 40-year-old has-been model whose main accomplishments in life aren’t “Born in the USA” or “Killing in the Name,” but 1) dating Kanye West and 2) a book titled “How to Be a Bad B****.” Oh, and some modeling ads.
The GOP does not need to appear to be “lit” — to use another youngsterism — to win elections. It doesn’t need to try to put on an affected show of being with it, since that’s not what government is about. It needs to win in November.
If the “cool factor” won elections, Howard Dean would have been finishing up his second term in 2012 and handing the reigns over to Bernie Sanders, who would have passed the mantle to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2020. (Who cares if she still is too young to run for the office? Coolness automatically abrogates all age requirements for office. It’s in the Eleventybillionth Amendment. You’ve never heard of that? Guess you’re not cool enough.)
Amber Rose, MAGA-professing though she may claim to be, is a fellow traveler of Satanism who likes what they’re doing to get women abortions and also believes that men can become women, in addition to the fact she’s called the man being nominated at the convention a “sexual predator.” Just like President Reagan invoking “Born in the USA” without actually reading the lyrics, this is an idea Republican operatives ought to quash before it backfires bigly.
