Kanye West says he is running for president, and he launched his campaign with a bizarre, uncomfortable rally.
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Kanye West held his first campaign rally for his (maybe serious) run for the United States presidency this week. It quickly went off the rails, and arguably had more people worried about his mental health than seriously considering him as a candidate for the highest office in the land.
It was bombastic, strange, and very Kanye, in the worst sort of way. If you’re just coming into this story, you probably have a lot of questions. We will try to answer them here.
Who is this now?
Kanye West, the producer and rapper who’s made some of the best music of the last few decades by, like, anyone. We ranked all of his songs a few years back. He’s got really good songs!
Why is he holding a campaign rally?
West says he’s running for president.
Like, the actual president?
Yes.
Oh.
Yeah.
What are his … politics?
They’re a bit all over the place, as you might imagine. West has gone from famously decrying George W. Bush for not caring about Black people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to being a pretty vocal supporter of Donald Trump. He’s now saying he’s his own man.
As to his specific policies, uh, honestly I feel a bit gross getting into them, because it’s clear this man is going through something right now, or just using a platform to drum up interest in his new album.
But to give you a taste: “Harriet Tubman actually never freed the slaves, she just had the slaves go work for other white people” is a thing he said, along with suggesting marijuana should be free, and that there should be no more Plan B contraceptive, instead Plan A, which apparently is a plan to give every person who has a child $1 million. (Not a bad idea, tbh.)
So what was this rally?
It was him kicking off his presidential campaign. He wore a bulletproof vest and talked for a while, to some cheers and a whole lot of boos. It appeared most of the people there were there to gawk at the stunt as opposed to, you know, support him for president.
So is this all just a stunt?
Most likely. West announced he was running for president a few weeks ago, but then a spokesperson said he wasn’t running due to not getting organized enough to get on the ballot in a lot of states.
Then West said he was running again. So, I have no idea.
He has a new album coming out?
Yes. He’s sworn this isn’t just a publicity stunt for the new album, but, you know, he also said that marijuana should be free for everyone, so how seriously you take him is up to you. There are parts of this whole thing that are worrying, however.
What’s worrying about it?
West has been very vocal about his mental health issues in the past, openly discussing them in his music, and for him to now launch a presidential bid in which he’s openly getting emotional and throwing pretty out-there ideas into the world is worrying.
It suggests, to some, that this isn’t a marketing stunt, or an earnest run for president, but rather a guy with some issues who clearly isn’t being held in check or helped by the people around him. I have no idea, and can’t speculate, but it’s all kind of sad and worrying.
Could he actually influence the election?
I sincerely doubt it. Suggesting, as some on the right wing have, that Kanye West would split the Black vote and take votes away from Biden is about as disrespectful as you can be to Black voters in this country. I’d say West might steal some of the Idiot Vote from who knows who, or the “I was just going to write in Mickey Mouse” Vote, but I don’t think that’s a major part of the electorate.
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