I'm a Little Disappointed That Kanye West Being a Nazi Isn't a Dealbreaker for More People
I waste a lot of time on social media because I am weak and cannot resist its siren song. But I also spend way too much time on Facebook, getting topics for blog posts and replenishing my contempt for humanity.
As I have chronicled extensively here, I used to be a big Kanye West fan. It went beyond that. I saw Kanye West as an inspirational figure. I used to see a lot of myself in Kanye West.
For years, I had a ritual. Before I sent an important email, I would listen to Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky” and Too Short’s “Getting It” to psych myself up.
Kanye used to be my favorite rapper and producer. When people complained that Kanye West was arrogant and off-putting, I would weakly respond that Kanye was a genius and that the rules were different for geniuses.
Then came Kanye’s heel turn when he inexplicably outed himself as a Trump supporter. I hoped that it was just a phase. It was not. Kanye West didn’t come to his senses and realize that he’d thrown his support behind a monster who clearly hated black people.
Instead, Kanye West became such an extreme and abrasive figure that he seemed to think that Trump wasn’t monstrous enough and didn’t hate black people as much as he personally did.
Trump wasn’t Trumpy enough for Kanye West, so he decided that he would run for president against him from the right, although he did graciously offer the disgraced, twice-impeached thirty-four-time felon an opportunity to run as his vice president.
I spent three morbidly fascinating hours watching Kanye West mortify ALEX FUCKING JONES with his full-throated support of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement.
Jones gave Kanye all kinds of outs. When Kanye expressed enthusiasm for the architect for the Holocaust, Jones tried to rein him in by imploring him to say that he liked Nazi fashion and style but hated Hitler and everything he represented.
Instead, Kanye West doubled down on his support of Hitler and the Nazis, very explicitly stating that he loves all sorts of things about Hitler, such as his hatred of Jews, not just his sartorial flair.
Kanye West brought noted white supremacists Nick Fuentes and Milo Yianoppoulis to the show with him as bonus white supremacists.
The image that got Kanye temporarily thrown off Twitter.
I cannot think of Kanye West’s life and career right now outside of his enthusiastic public support of first Donald Trump and then Adolf Hitler. I don’t care how many classic songs Kanye West has produced or how good The College Dropout or My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy were.
Kanye West’s support for Hitler defines him as a person and an artist rather than his discography or career. To me, Kanye West is a Hitler lover first, second, and third, and a rapper and producer a distant fourth and fifth.
I cannot imagine a clearer deal-breaker than coming out as a Nazi, particularly if you belong to a group that Hitler deemed inferior, as Kanye West does. There’s a reason that Hitler is the gold standard for evil. There’s a reason we fought a World War against Hitler and his allies.
I have learned, through social media, that Kanye West being a proud anti-Semite who speaks glowingly of Adolf Hitler, is not a deal breaker for many.
I’m not sure why I was surprised to learn this. For a lot of the people who comment on posts about Kanye West, his politics are irrelevant, or can be dismissed as part of his eccentric personality.
A lot of Kanye West fans have no problem separating the artist from the art or hold the artist in high esteem despite all of the awful things he’s done. That includes terrorizing the mother of his children and her then-boyfriend, Pete Davidson, during a contentious divorce.
I am a Jewish leftist who does not believe in conspiracy theories, particularly ones involving Jews running the world. So I am naturally horrified by one of my all-time favorite artists coming out as a proud member of the Alt-Right, anti-Semite, and Nazi sympathizer if not flat-out Nazis.
Many Hip Hop heads do not care about politics, or they care about politics because they’re also conspiracy theorists and see in Kanye West not a vicious anti-Semite willing to give up hundreds of millions of dollars rather than denounce Hitler and his crimes against humanity, but rather a free thinker sharing provocative truths the establishment doesn’t want you to know.
There are also a lot of anti-Semites who share Kanye’s beliefs about Jews and, consequently, are more likely to enjoy his music.
For the very online, Kanye West’s appearance on InfoWars and notorious Tweets represent the shit-posting of a provocateur who delights in pissing the establishment off.
In this context, Kanye West isn’t necessarily expressing genuine political beliefs but rather trolling the left and people apoplectic that a powerful black man supports white supremacy and white supremacists.
I’m surprised that Kanye West’s pro-Hitler stance hasn’t proven a deal breaker for a disconcertingly sizable percentage of the public.
I probably shouldn’t be.
Nathan needed expensive, life-saving dental implants, and his dental plan doesn’t cover them, so he started a GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nathans-journey-to-dental-implants. Give if you can!
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