Interesting, the similarities. Discuss.
Kanye West Suffers From Trumpism
Kanye West Suffers From Trumpism
*snip*
Instead, let’s consider why Kanye would go Trump. Once you get your bearings on this side of the looking glass, it’s not so hard to understand why Kanye would feel kinship—or rather, “dragon energy“—with the president. Right after West’s Trump Tower visit, in December 2016, Katy Waldman smartly explored the expansive similarities between the two men, writing:
Both men are improvisational, controversial performers with megalomaniacal dreams and a history of rebuking the “politically correct.” Both have made inflammatory nods to white supremacy, whether by inciting Twitter’s “alt-right” or wearing (however ironically) Confederate arm patches. As Amy Zimmerman at the Daily Beast points out, both have vacillated between bankruptcy and astronomical wealth; both married conspicuously sexy wives; both complain that the press is out to get them. Furthermore, both have been criticized as egomaniacal man-children even as they relish playing the misunderstood outsider.
Waldman went on to argue that both are susceptible to the allure of fascism in part thanks to their grandiose ideas about themselves and their place in the world. (It’s easy to like to fantasize about autocracy when you’re the one who’d be on top, after all.) These characteristics help explain why they both fit so neatly into the current caricature of the right, which has taken its historic beliefs in the power of the individual to an unbelievable extreme. It also is no coincidence that Kanye’s current stream-of-consciousness tweeting has oscillated between a bizarre strain of self-help advice—“Your conscience should allow a physical manifestation of your subconscious but right now most peoples conscious is too affected by other people’s thoughts”—and MAGA-esque commentary—”The thought police want to suppress freedom of thought.” When it is the individual, and the individual alone, who is responsible for pulling himself up by his bootstraps, a door swings open for hucksters who peddle faux scientific scams. In this land, the kind of hollow advice Kanye is shilling seems profound rather than empty. It’s another similarity the rapper has with Trump, whose snake-oil salesmanship explains a good deal of his ascent to the presidency.
Kanye West Suffers From Trumpism
Kanye West Suffers From Trumpism
*snip*
Instead, let’s consider why Kanye would go Trump. Once you get your bearings on this side of the looking glass, it’s not so hard to understand why Kanye would feel kinship—or rather, “dragon energy“—with the president. Right after West’s Trump Tower visit, in December 2016, Katy Waldman smartly explored the expansive similarities between the two men, writing:
Both men are improvisational, controversial performers with megalomaniacal dreams and a history of rebuking the “politically correct.” Both have made inflammatory nods to white supremacy, whether by inciting Twitter’s “alt-right” or wearing (however ironically) Confederate arm patches. As Amy Zimmerman at the Daily Beast points out, both have vacillated between bankruptcy and astronomical wealth; both married conspicuously sexy wives; both complain that the press is out to get them. Furthermore, both have been criticized as egomaniacal man-children even as they relish playing the misunderstood outsider.
Waldman went on to argue that both are susceptible to the allure of fascism in part thanks to their grandiose ideas about themselves and their place in the world. (It’s easy to like to fantasize about autocracy when you’re the one who’d be on top, after all.) These characteristics help explain why they both fit so neatly into the current caricature of the right, which has taken its historic beliefs in the power of the individual to an unbelievable extreme. It also is no coincidence that Kanye’s current stream-of-consciousness tweeting has oscillated between a bizarre strain of self-help advice—“Your conscience should allow a physical manifestation of your subconscious but right now most peoples conscious is too affected by other people’s thoughts”—and MAGA-esque commentary—”The thought police want to suppress freedom of thought.” When it is the individual, and the individual alone, who is responsible for pulling himself up by his bootstraps, a door swings open for hucksters who peddle faux scientific scams. In this land, the kind of hollow advice Kanye is shilling seems profound rather than empty. It’s another similarity the rapper has with Trump, whose snake-oil salesmanship explains a good deal of his ascent to the presidency.
