by Lena Potts
Kanye West has been tweeting up a storm the last few days, expressing political opinions in support of conservative pundits and President Trump. The discourse around these tweets has included instant lauding from conservatives to accusations that his mental health is failing.
I’m not a doctor, nor have I ever met Kanye West, but he does not have to be crazy to support Trump. Instead, Kanye is as he always has been: narcissistic, contrarian, and ambitious.
While it’s easy to think of Kanye’s politics as controversially Trump-centric, he’s had a long and varied history with society and politics. Early on in his career, Kanye actively positioned himself as a representative of Chicago’s socio-political needs, with a specific focus on the Black experience. In “Jesus Walks”, one of his earliest hits, he speaks out against police brutality and even, in a pretty left-leaning line for 2004, describes the welfare system as victimizing people. Of course, the next year he said “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people” during a live telethon for Hurricane Katrina relief. Eight years later, with Yeezus, he sampled “Strange Fruit” and wrote “New Slaves” as a description of capitalism as contemporary enslavement of Black people. Even his now-infamous interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs carried notions of racial justice- not only was Beyoncé’s video one of the “greatest of all time”, she was also a Black woman losing to a less capable White woman.
Through all of this, Kanye got to be the dissenting voice. Transcendence and reclamation have always been key to his image- he is different, and special for his difference. For years, in interviews and on social media, he has hyped the idea of Kanye as “original”, “innovative”, “a creator”, “the truth”.
This is the same rhetoric that the President used to get elected, and continues to use in the face of conflict.
Kanye’s barrage of tweets over the past few days highlight his need, in the new socio-political landscape, for a new means of transcendence.
Since 2016, West has both aggressively supported Trump and repeatedly argued that he is “not political”. He has stated that had he voted in the 2016 election it would have been in favor of Trump, but he did not engage in the process at all- a political statement without the political action. One of his tweets this week declared that he is “not even political”. Despite this claim, he also tweeted the following:
The very concepts of “thought police” and “freedom of speech” are inherently political (as well as social, legal, and so much more). To claim to not be political within days of making these claims in a public forum, as a public figure, amidst a conversation about the President of the United States, is, of course, absurd. It is the fallacy of wanting political thoughts and ideals to be separate from political action or the political process; it absolves you of the actual work.
The President framed himself as “not political” throughout his campaign, and continues to do so even now that he holds THE HIGHEST POLITICAL OFFICE IN THE COUNTRY.
It’s all an effort to build a platform of individualism and exceptionalism. Both of these men, despite engaging in politics, are not political, because, according to the narratives they play into, politics are a negative.
Many of West’s tweets from this week play into the concept of authenticity over assimilation to norms, mirroring the tone with which many conservatives denounce “identity politics”, “politics as usual”, and “political correctness” as stifling. Kanye saying, “we live in a time where people don’t respect people for being themselves” mirrors Trumps entire platform. Damning the political process at a core level as disingenuous and deeply corrupted creates the illusion of anything outside the process as more authentic, and thus, better. It’s why “he tells it like it is” was a key refrain of Trump supporters throughout the election. It also allows both men’s narcissism to flourish rather than alienate- it’s much easier to sell yourself as a savior, constantly and obnoxiously, if you have created the perception that everything else is trash.
Kanye has had to pivot, and he found a perfect model, consciously or not, for how to transcend the normal in the current socio-political context. Some of these tweets read just like Trump’s- aggressive claims of superiority, theory and promise without practice, “fake news”. The path to transcendence or contrarianism is no longer fighting for marginalized people, advocating for Chicago, or performing as “old Kanye”, who today would look like a regular shmegular Black activist. Instead, he’s flipped his politics (or “thoughts”, as he would call them) to rail against the expectations we might have for a Black powerful celebrity. By aligning himself with Trump he gets to continue the image he’s always pursued. He loves Trump because they’re so similar, and because, ultimately, he loves himself.
Unfortunately, West doesn’t want to accept that his alignment with Trump is political, no matter how hard he tries, and that it has ramifications. Ever a fan of reclamation, Kanye wants to make things mean whatever he wants them to mean. He wants to separate Trump’s uniqueness or outspokenness from their political implications. He wants to claim, and reclaim, Trump as his own, just as he said he reclaimed the confederate flag, or sweaters with holes in them. For West, real meaning is moot if you can claim your own understanding. That’s the extent of his belief in himself.
John Legend gave a sensible conversation a real shot. But what he doesn’t understand, nor do those who claim this is an effect of mental illness, or those regaling Kanye for being a “free thinker”, is that this is just Kanye being Kanye.
