In the darkest loneliest hours, Republicans have been doing a lot of soul-searching trying to figure out where it all went wrong. Oh sure, in public they put on a good face, taking strong bold actions like refusing money to build bridges--or levies--to a new generation of GOP followers, but for some reason, this plan of attack isn't resonating.
No matter how many times they use the word "dumbulus" (an actual word bandied about presumably chosen by Republican overlords instead of the combination of "stupid" and "stimulus" into "stupimulus," which sounds kind of awesome), the Republican Party's message just isn't reaching the young people.
On the real, it's not the fault of the message. But as Grandmaster Flash taught us in The Message all those years ago, it's a jungle out there and sometimes in the privacy of their own gated communities the Grand Old Party wonders how they're going to keep from going under.
Party people everywhere, throw your hands in the air and wave 'em like you really do care for the GOP. Newly elected RNC Committee Chairman Michael Steele is here to bring the noise, to make it rain, to drop knowledge, and to blow up the little tent by bringing the T.I. train into the 2010 midterm election station.
Yesterday, Steele unveiled his plan to bring all the young dawgs and the old elephants together in an "off-the-hook" public relations push.
"We need messengers to really capture that region - young, Hispanic, black, a cross section ... We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings...We need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets," Washington Times 2/19/09.
(Regarding the latter, Bushwick Bill and Joe C. were unavailable for comment.)
Steele isn't simply an AAINO (African-American in Name Only); he's an old-school G who knows that the future of the party requires getting the focus off of Obama and his cross-cultural appeal and back to the "message."
"It will be avant-garde, technically...It will come to table with things that will surprise everyone - off the hook.... I don't do 'cutting-edge. That's what Democrats are doing. We're going beyond cutting-edge," Washington Times 2/19/09.
Pundits scoff, but that's because they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the GOP.
Steele's proposal may sound like the type of clueless pandering spoken behind closed doors at South Carolina Republican Chairman Katon Dawson's no-longer-whites-only country club (Forest Lake Country Club: Welcoming Afro-Americans since 2009!), but skeptics are missing the ingenious appeal of Steele's rap game revolution.
Steele's avant-garde push into the urban-suburban hip-hop settings isn't simply empty rhyme schemes and tired tax-cutting beats, it's the wheels of steel of grassroots community activism. (But definitely not that wack community organizing shit that took Barack all the way to the Black House.) You may think the ties between Republicans and the Jay-Z milliennials died the day 18-29-year-olds voted 2 to 1 for Obama, but just because you ain't feelin' it, doesn't mean it ain't a celebration of Republican diversity bitches.
In an exclusive Huffington Post interview, Steele revealed his five-part plan to take back the 'hoods, campuses, corners, playgrounds and champagne rooms of America.
Y'all better recognize.
Step One. Introduce the REAL Slim Shady: We haven't heard much from Marshall Mathers since he delivered the anti-Iraq War anthem Mosh. That conflict was quietly wrapped up, so Slim Shady has been laying low waiting to pounce on the powers-that-be. Things are bleak on Eight Mile, but if one man can save Detroit and unite those left behind to clean up the scraps of the auto industry, it's Eminem! Shady's entire reason for being is to speak truth to power, and now that the Man has darker skin, it's time to rally the unemployed soldiers to the GOP. Across the country, Steele will be throwing album release parties for Eminem's upcoming album Relapse, which will include a massive green initiative to recycle the hoods of Hummers and fenders of Flexes into home siding, portable turntables, emergency lean-tos and body armor. Can he have your attention, please? The real Michael Steele just stood up.
Step 2. Syrup Saves the Strong: The hardest-working man in hip-hop is Lil Wayne. He's a rapper, producer, collaborator, beat-maker, actor, composer and ESPN writer. Weezy's a one-man economic savior, but he couldn't do it without grandpa's cough medicine. What keeps Wayne's braids to the grindstone? Sipping syrup, a combination made up chiefly of promethazine, codeine and Sprite. Steele plans on making Purple Drank the centerpiece of his healthcare reform package. It's magic medicine, just the type of elixir that will get people off the couches on the lawns of their foreclosed homes and back to work! The combination of Medicare savings through the universal syrup plan, and the increase in productivity, will stimulate up this piece faster than Beyonce in a see-through dress. Paging, Dr. Carter...
Step 3. Kick it Old School: Anyone heard from MC Ren, King Tee, Schoolly D, Pete Nice, Da Brat, Funky Four Plus One, Big Daddy Kane, the Nappy Roots, Del the Funky Homosapien, the Coup or Fab Five Freddy lately? Like most Americans, these hip-hop pioneers have been hit hard by the economy and are in desperate need of a J-O-B. Steele astutely noted, "not in the history of mankind has the government ever created a job." True that. However, federal investment in education is imperative, so Steele is advocating a national chain of vocational schools dedicated to teaching the skills of scratching, mixing, rapping, booty-shaking, rhyming, sampling, graffiti-tee-shirt silk-screening, tattooing, selling mixtapes at the swap meet, and rounding up strangers on the street for open mic battles. Run by the private sector, these will be charter academies with a shirt-and-tie dress requirement. Leave the baggy jeans and camouflage hats for the public cesspools. Steele plans on bringing back the old school legends as instructors and administrators, but not until the Hip-Hop Halls of Education are built. Fire up the backhoe, KRS-One! Steele can't stop, won't stop! This project is shovel ready!
Step 4. Solve the 2Pac, Biggie and Jam Master Jay Killings: Remember when the original G-Men wiped out the Mafia? Well, with torture off the table, there will be a lot of investigators in the intelligence community needing a new challenge. Steele is calling for an all-encompassing effort to solve these "unsolvable" cases. He's advocating a "War on Murder" to be funded through the legal-in-California sale of Encyclopedia Brownz, the sticky icky of choice for the new Sherlock Holmez shocktroops. Nothing will rally young hip-hoppers to the GOP cause like the quick resolution of these murders, or if that fails, good old-fashioned vigilante street justice. Holla back, Holmez!
Step 5. Bring Back MC Rove: Rule number one in politics, dance with the fat old white men who brought you there. Steele's radical Republican transformation is going to scare some of the party's elite, but MC Rove knows what time it is. Milquetoastious B.I.G. may be "white from his head to his feet," but that's because he's keeping it real, and that's what the streets respect. If he wasn't legit, would some random black man in a tuxedo join him on stage while he spits science? Behold the Pied Piper of Pimpdigalicious, uniting the base with the Obama generation, making Michael Steele's hip-hoprophecy come true!
The Republican Party may have 9,999 problems, but Karl Rove ain't one.
The GOP yo, that shit is stupimulus!