Kanye West, Donald Trump, and the Truth About Chicago
During Thursday’s visit to the Oval Office, Kanye West said that he saw Trump as a reference point for his own masculinity, and that he derived superpowers from his Make America Great Again hat. Since its inception as a gauche, reality-TV-worthy lark, Donald Trump’s political career has trafficked—profitably—in spectacle. The risqué language of his rhetoric, the belligerent fervor of the campaign rallies that he holds even two years after the election, the malign charisma that he exudes—all this was in pursuit of a cynical principle that he has organized his life and, now, the nation’s politics around. Selfless service is no longer the most esteemed virtue of democracy; celebrity is. It’s for this reason that the image of a maga-hatted Kanye West, seated, on Thursday, in front of the Resolute Desk and blacksplaining the evils of the Democratic Party, while Trump nodded along, felt less surreal than it should have. Rather, it seemed a logical turn of events in a cosmos capable of granting Donald Trump three hundred and four votes in the Electoral College. Surrealism only works when there is a stable reference for reality.
As part of a ten-minute logorrhea jaunt in the Oval Office, West oddly admitted that he saw Trump as a reference point for his own masculinity, and that he derived superpowers from his red Make America Great Again hat. To the extent that it matters—and, in the marketplace of spectacle, it does not matter much—West is not a conservative; he’s a contrarian. (The same can be said of Trump.) An actual commitment to conservatism would require more stringently analytical or, at least, consistent thinking than West has demonstrated since he started his maga spree, earlier this year. It’s not uncommon for men unburdened by rigorous thinking but convinced of the superiority of their intellects to presume that a minority opinion is the most valid one. As they see it, a rarity among men must certainly hold the least common of world views. It is not uncommon for people to support Donald Trump, as the rallies that he presides over indicate. But it is uncommon for black men, eighty-two per cent of whom voted for Hillary Clinton, to support him. It is safe to assume that Trump’s support among middle-aged rappers is at least as meagre. This conflation of élitism with unpopular ideas is a trait that Trump and West share. Trump’s most absurd and wrongheaded ideas, from birtherism to trade protectionism, are connected by the fact that they were thought to be ridiculous by people whom he sees as his intellectual inferiors—not, like him, a genius.
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https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/kanye-west-donald-trump-and-the-truth-about-chicago
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