This July 4th weekend brought a number of surprises, and the most unexpected came courtesy of rapper Kanye West:
Now, I understand the temptation to dismiss Kanye’s announcement as a joke. But there is evidence that he has in fact been planning a presidential run.
This isn’t the first time West has said he will run for president. He claimed back in 2019, during his appearance at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York City, that he was planning to run in 2024.
“When I run for president in 2024, we’re going to definitely — yo, whatchu [sic] all laughing at?” he said at the time. “When I run for president in 2024, we would’ve created so many jobs that, in fact, I’m going to walk.”
Kanye does face some serious hurdles if he wants to get on the 2020 ballot. The deadline to run as an independent candidate has already passed in several states.
So it doesn’t look like Kanye is launching a serious bid for the White House in 2020 so much as a trial balloon for 2024.
It’s too late for West to run as an independent this year, but if he gets the 2020 Green or Libertarian nomination, he will basically flip the table.
Biden is currently in the lead, with Trump starting to recover from a series of blunders. The fact that Democrat voters continue pouring in from the third world while Trump’s core voters continue to … well … die of old age, confronts the President with a daunting challenge.
But a Kanye West third party candidacy will have one crucial effect: peeling black voters away from Biden.
And the Left knows it.
Kanye’s announcement drew a lot of scoffing–mostly from older people who don’t understand that a) demographics is destiny and b) Kanye West has one of the most formidable personal brands on Earth–rivaling even Donald Trump’s.
For good or ill, the era of patrician statesmen is over. If Kanye West ever succeeds in winning either major party’s Presidential nomination, he will win.
