As Taylor Swift is in the front picture of this website, it is incumbent upon me to comment on the presidential campaign of Kanye West. A part of me absolutely finds his presidential ambitions to be thoroughly pleasurable on the level of Fentanyl. For the same reason, in 2013, John Oliver begged Donald Trump to run for president. Kanye is bat-shit crazy and I would enjoy watching him run in a similar manner to my bullies a long time ago who exploited the social blindness of my neurological condition to make me humiliate myself for their amusement. However, the very fact that it was a way I was bullied is a sign that it is a vice which should be checked and not drunk in excess. Indeed, Kanye is not only a clown but a deranged fascist whose rhetoric most closely resembles Pat Buchannan in 1992.
We cannot just laugh at him, he is a threat who needs to be appreciated with the deadly seriousness that he is. He can’t win in 2020 but he may win in 2024. Which would, by the way, be the first presidential election Taylor Swift would be eligible for. I certainly do not want them running against each other. I’d vote for Swift in the general election although I’d vote against her in the Democratic primary but I think I would probably thereafter move to Syria because America was just too crazy. One assumes she doesn’t want to be president but, then again, I wouldn’t gamble on that assumption. In any event, as Swift has not yet expressed any interest in the office, she is not of immediate concern.
Kanye is not only a threat in terms of his candidacy, itself, but in the precedent he sets. Donald Trump may be an aberration but if it happens a second time, then it is normalized. If Kanye loses in 2024, Kid Rock could run a slightly more professional campaign and win four years later. The Overton Window would shift in the direction of crazy. So, Kanye’s danger is greater than Kanye, himself. Which is why all reasonable measures need to be taken to grind his candidacy into microscopic dust to dissuade any potential emulators that crazy celebrities running for president is unwise for their personal reputation and finances.
Our political institutions are at the weakest they have ever been and they need to be strengthened but as long as they are weak then it is the responsibility of the disparate citizenry to oppose crazy people running. What is scarier than Kanye’s craziness are his actual policy positions and when destroying his political career those need to be eviscerated. I am a groupie of the J man but when Kanye talks about Christianity, he does so with a 1980’s televangelist slant that strikes terror into the hearts of political scientists. I hope to Almighty God that he cannot exploit the social conservatism of minority communities with that approach. It may be that he can appeal to socially conservative minority groups who are alienated by the traditional left and right. Kanye does have a niche.
That being the case, the primary means of fighting him may be a culture war in the socially conservative minority communities. The white community has had a culture war that has not yet reached the every demographic. Culture war is not always fun and it isn’t going to be fun this time. My greatest regret is, knowing celebrities can run for president, why didn’t Carl Sagan run for president. He really should have run in 1992 or 1988. And now, how about John Stewart or Sarah Silverman. There are so many celebrities with a slight background in politics who could do much better than the celebrities who have expressed interest. Alas, the celebrities who want to run for president want to because it is a shiny thing and those mature enough to not be drawn by such a thing don’t try to grab it. That, perhaps, is the greatest thing we must change as a culture, letting the children grab the shiny things.
The Autistic Resistance 