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Analysis
Kanye West’s foray into politics has corresponded with a stunning fall from grace.
Not so long ago, West, who changed his name to Ye, was at the pinnacle of his career as an artist, designer, and entrepreneur.
Ye announced another bidfor the presidency on Nov. 25. Since then, he’s gone into career freefall.
Asking former President Donald Trump to be his running mate has perhaps been the only amusing moment over the last few weeks of the chaos.
It’s a tragic, self-inflicted demise for an artist whose work has captivated millions and inspired legions of fans. Now everywhere Ye turns, someone else disowns him.
His moves as a presidential candidate have included praising Hitler, cozying up with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, and briefly hiring the perpetually toxic far-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos to work on his campaign.
Even before he launched the campaign, Ye had already been generating negative press for years, such as when he called slavery a choice or questioned the murder of George Floyd, which he later apologized for.
Over the last year, he’s made multiple disturbing posts and comments about Pete Davidson, the now-former love interest of Ye’s ex, Kim Kardashian.
This fall, he appalled the masses by wearing a “white lives matter” shirt to his fashion show where he was accompanied by Candace Owens.
When Twitter and Instagram booted him for antisemitic posts, he made a bid to buy Parler—which was initially thrilled by the prospect.
His recent antics have proven too toxic even for Parler, which we’ve called “one of the internet’s remaining havens for unfettered hate.” The company is now unwilling to be acquired by Ye.
Hell, even conspiracy theorist Alex Jones pushed back on Ye for saying he likes Hitler and asking people to “stop dissing the Nazis” during an interview on InfoWars. It goes without saying that you have to go really, really far to be too extreme for the guy who owes Sandy Hook families a billion dollars for lying about their murdered children.
Ye (at least for now) has profiles on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Parler. There’s also a verified Gab account in his name, but it appears to be run by a third party.
Why it matters
Even in today’s Republican Party, there’s pretty much no chance that Ye will win the presidential nomination. In the extremely unlikely event that happens, the odds of him winning the presidency seem remote at best.
Nevertheless, Ye has a huge platform with tens of millions of followers. And lately he’s using that power and influence to spread hateful antisemitism.