It had to be one of the greatest moments on social media in a long time. Rapper Kanye West, the infamous basher of George Bush during Hurricane Katrina, isn’t a hater of Trump. In fact, he went on a lengthy Twitter thread about how we all need to be freethinkers, and how the progressive mob won’t stop him from loving President Trump. He later clarified that he doesn’t agree with everything Trump stands for, citing his wife, Kim Kardashian West, with who had called him as these tweets began to explode across the Internet. Still, even Kim supported her husband tweeting, “He’s a free thinker, is that not allowed in America?”
You don't have to agree with trump but the mob can't make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don't agree with everything anyone does. That's what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018
He’s a free thinker, is that not allowed in America? Because some of his ideas differ from yours you have to throw in the mental health card? That’s just not fair. He’s actually out of the sunken place when he’s being himself which is very expressive
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) April 25, 2018
This apparent red pilling of Kanye stems from his support of Talking Points USA’s Candace Owens, who is also black, who earned West’s respect, saying he liked what she had to say; Owens has gone on to criticize black Americans for being proto-slaves to the Democratic Party, held hostage in their minds by the pervasive victimhood mentality. Kanye even took a swipe at Obama, which I know didn't sit well with progressives.
Obama was in office for eight years and nothing in Chicago changed.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018
Free thinkers don't fear retaliation for your thoughts. The traditional thinkers are only using thoughts and words but they are in a mental prison. You are free. You've already won. Feel energized. Move in love not fear. Be afraid of nothing.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018
You don't have to agree with trump but the mob can't make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don't agree with everything anyone does. That's what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018
If your friend jumps off the bridge you don't have to do the same. Ye being Ye is a fight for you to be you. For people In my life the idea of Trump is pretty much a 50 50 split but I don't tell a Hillary supporter not to support Hillary
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018
I love Hillary too.
I love when people have their own ideas. You don't have to be allowed anymore. Just be.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018
Love who you want to love. That's free thought. I'm not even political. I'm not a democrat or a republican
my wife just called me and she wanted me to make this clear to everyone. I don't agree with everything Trump does. I don't agree 100% with anyone but myself.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018
Needless to say, the Hollywood Left had a meltdown. Actress and singer Janelle Monae, John Legend, and Ice-T were not too pleased over the tweets. It got so bad that The Washington Post devoted a rather lengthy piece explain why Kanye and Owens are being duped, or something:
Oh wow so they actually wrote and published this. https://t.co/bvQgKDAqUY
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) April 26, 2018
Last week, while speaking to an audience at the University of California at Los Angeles, she [Owens] addressed a group of, apparently, Black Lives Matter protesters by saying:
“Victim mentality is not cool. I don’t know why people like being oppressed. … ‘We’re oppressed! Four-hundred years of slavery! Jim Crow!’ By the way, none of you guys lived through [that]. … Your grandparents did, and it’s embarrassing that you utilize their history. You’re not living through anything right now.”
Over the weekend, in an interview on Fox News about the UCLA dust-up, Owens said, “The truth is, the numbers are in, okay. Police brutality is not an issue that is facing the black community whatsoever.” But as The Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery explained in 2016, The Post’s reporting has found African Americans are killed by police at far higher rates than, for instance, whites. In terms of the impetus for ongoing protest, Columbia University professor John McWhorter, regularly tabbed as outside the black mainstream and a sometimes critic of the Black Lives Matter movement’s approach, has argued that “police violence is not just one of many issues in black America’s take on racism: It is the central one.”
To Owens, though, it’s all of a piece. “The left,” she went on, “wants to strap black people to this idea that they are victims. … They don’t like to see black people that are free thinkers and are independent, and I think that’s what Kanye West and myself represent to the black community, and that makes them very nervous.”
[…]
And if Owens believes the Democratic platform works to the detriment of black America, she should make that case, issue by issue. She will find more agreement out there than you might suspect. But the implication that the vast majority of black voters are bound to a Democratic Party plantation is a misunderstanding of Politics 101 and an insult to an entire slice of the electorate.
[…]
Like every other demographic, African Americans vote their interests, real or perceived. In the context of a two-party system, the fact that black voters overwhelmingly support Democrats isn’t an indicator of groupthink, it’s an indicator of an informed black electorate.
If Owens prefers the GOP platform, then, certainly, she should support it. But as Rolling Stone’s Jamil Smith points out, “Contrarianism is a much lesser goal than iconoclasm, and much easier to achieve.” Calling other people victims, or slaves, isn’t an argument about the proper size and scope of government. It’s not a defense of a foreign-policy doctrine. It’s not an anti-choice argument. And it’s not a coherent (or, for that matter, conservative) explanation for police brutality.
By giving herself bonus points for voting her conscience while attempting to write off most of the black voters who vote theirs, Owens is exempting herself from the hard work of trying to persuade people, black or otherwise, that the policies she favors are the right course for the black community and the country.
And Kanye West fell for it.
This is what happens when you leave the Democrat plantation. pic.twitter.com/ryEXDmujnr
— J.R. Salzman (@jrsalzman) April 26, 2018
Okay—so, what’s the point here? Owens doesn’t go down the right path to change minds, so somehow Kanye and everyone who might have changed their minds because of Owens has been duped? Pretty much, the argument here is that the right way to flip black voters is to go line-by-line, issue-by-issue because…my god! Kanye just tweeted support for Trump. This is panic mode for the Left, or at least some of them. It’s an act of desperation and no; Owens doesn’t have to go through the liberal media’s criteria for attacking Democratic initiatives. She can attack in any, which way she pleases. Also, it’s grossly condescending. The point of the line-by-line method is to a) expose that the GOP is not really for black Americans; and b) show that the Democratic Party isuntouchable somehow, especially for people of color. We don’t need to play by these rules, folks. This piece and other outbursts are signs that the Left doesn’t like people; especially those who this movement considers should be liberal Democrats by default, who buck the trend. Are the numbers about police shootings troubling? Yes, but it’s not a sign of a covert black genocide in America. The Washington Post’s own 2017 police shooting tracker found that nearly 1,000 people were killed last year in law enforcement-related shootings, only last year most of the victims were white, with the vast majority of those killed were armed with a firearm or knife.
So, I guess the 2016 numbers feed into police brutality narrative for the Left, but that ends the following year?
Here’s the thing: Kanye and Owens can like, support, and vote for whomever they like. This is at the core of Kanye’s Twitter bomb. Trying to Vox-splain why this is troubling and misguided because you don’t like how someone is bucking the trend is obnoxious. Hey, maybe another reason why Trump won?
Kanye did pay something for his Trump love? PJ Media had that the music artist lost nearly 10 million Twitter followers, but later said he actually gained some on his account. He’s still famous, rich, married, and no Trump hater. What a time to be alive.
Oh, and Kanye's not the only one telling fans that blacks don't have to be Democrats. Enter Chance the Rapper:
Chance would never do this to us.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) April 25, 2018
This aged suuuuper well. https://t.co/UXkT19fZbm
— Storm Paglia (@storm_paglia) April 26, 2018
Black people don’t have to be democrats.
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) April 25, 2018
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