What Is Kanye West’s Political Party?
By: Opheli Garcia Lawler
Tags: Entertainment, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

Last week, President Barack Obama introduced Kanye West before his performance at the Democratic National Convention. Obama jokingly referred to Kanye’s presidential run in 2020, going so far to offer him some cheeky advice for his campaign. Kanye West has been to the White House before, and as both he and the President hail from Chicago, this is not the first time support has flowed between the two. Kanye has been invited to multiple White House dinners starting in 2008, and has used his celebrity status to endorse President Obama’s presidential campaigns in the past.

Kanye has also taken selfies with Hillary Clinton in the early months of 2015. Clinton is largely supported by liberal Hollywood, and Kanye’s wife, Kim Kardashian has also been vocal about her support for the only female democratic nominee, going so far as to tweet her support. Overall, when he is vocal on social and political issues, his views seem very…liberal. Remember when Kanye West said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” on national television in 2005, and it sparked a national debate about racism and the response to Katrina? That is a critique you typically only hear from more… left leaning citizens.

But before he performed at the DNC this past week he was also vocal about a different political candidate. The candidate was the ever-unbelievable Ben Carson, one of the fourteen 2016 Republican candidates. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Kanye called the neurosurgeon and 2016 hopeful “the most brilliant guy.”

Carson recently spoke out about the whole “rampant rates of mass shootings and the U.S Government’s inability to regulate who is allowed to own a firearm” ordeal. When discussing the issue on live television in late September, after a school shooting in the Midwest left several dead, he intimated that the Jews of Europe’s experience during the Nazi’s reign of Germany would had been much different if the Jews had guns. This is a completely ridiculous and uneducated statement, but then again, Carson is also a brain surgeon who doesn’t seem to have the capability to conceptualize what an abortion is.

So here’s the issue at hand: What are Kanye West’s political beliefs? When it comes to normal celebrities, in general, no one really cares. But Kanye is continuously politicizing himself, going so far to announce his presidency in 2020 in late August at the 2015 VMA’s. And while the man has given countless interviews on his beliefs, they mostly revolve around his own broad convictions and artistic creation. This would be all fine and dandy if he didn’t involve himself in the world of politics, or did so from a purely social standpoint. It doesn’t appear that Kanye’s self-centered persona allowed him to take the time to research a word that Ben Carson has said before he endorsed the man. This is troubling, to say the least, for someone who demands to be taken seriously in the political world. It’s like Kanye skipped his middle school government class. We know you are a college dropout, but damn Kanye, don’t you know what a two party system is?

Hillary, as soulless and self serving as she is criticized to be, is serving a demographic that believes in gender equality, marriage equality, and much stricter gun control. On the contrary, Ben Carson believes that a woman’s uterus is up for grabs, sort of a “finders keepers” situation. He wants to give everyone a gun, and doesn’t understand why more people don’t “fight back” when in a situation with a mass shooter. These political actions acts as huge juxtaposition… Again — what are Kanye West’s political beliefs?

Sure you could call Kanye a bipartisan celebrity, one who doesn’t align himself with one side but rather supports ideas he believes in. But that is bullshit. Kanye West is lackadaisical in his grabs for more power, and supports whatever looks good at the moment without giving it much further thought. If Kanye West wants to be a celebrity who matters in the political world, he needs to be clear about where he stands, he needs to outline his political beliefs and he needs to abandon the creative abstractism that he somehow thinks excuses him from producing a coherent political stance.

DISCLAIMER: This was written by someone who truly believes Kanye West is a visionary and wants him to continue doing great things. However, if he wants to politicize himself, he needs to get his shit together. (Also, Kanye if you are reading this, I would love to spend my life as North West’s nanny, teacher, and spirit guide.)

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