I’ve started to feel a certain way about Kanye West’s mental illness, and it’s the same way I feel about all of those “psychology of Donald Trump” pieces. I honestly don’t care about their motivations, psychology and, in Kanye’s case, their profoundly disordered minds. I just can’t care about the “why” of it when it’s a life and death situation and a massive public safety crisis. Donald Trump represents an existential threat to all Americans. Kanye is trying to get Trump re-elected, so he too represents an existential threat. Frame it like that. Don’t frame it like “haha, Kanye for Prez, that’s hilarious!” It’s not hilarious. It’s not a minor curiosity. It’s frightening and disgusting. It’s appalling to see these white men blatantly use a mentally ill man for their own destructive, narrow ends.
It’s gotten to the point where I feel like the media should stop engaging with Kanye too, because it just ends up being a really sad account of a man who refuses to get help. Like this New York Times piece. Kanye comes across really unwell here.
He asked his campaign staff to not have sex outside of marriage: Kanye West wants to bring back prayer in schools, give more government support to religious groups and has even asked his campaign staff to refrain from “fornicating” outside of marriage, according to people aiding his candidacy. Mr. West has a bare-bones platform, focusing on general objectives like reforming the police, reducing household and student loan debt, and “restoring prayer in the classroom,” with each point reinforced by a bit of scripture. In discussions, the topic he brought up most was his opposition to abortion. He does not, however, want to ban abortion.
How the interview happened: Mr. West first called a Times reporter for this article on Aug. 11, close to midnight on the East Coast but a couple of hours earlier in Cody, Wyo., where he lives. He had just tweeted, “I’m willing to do a live interview with the New York Time about my meeting with Jared,” referring to a recent meeting he had with Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, that The Times had inquired about. During the call, Mr. West was upset and insisted on a live interview on Zoom, demanding that the editor of The Times be present as well, to which the Times reporter demurred. “I’m Kanye, who are you?” Mr. West asked, adding, “I’m the head of everything.”
He thinks the New York Times is a magazine: He also expressed anguish about abortion, said he didn’t reflexively support Democrats, and asked, “Does anyone at your magazine believe in Jesus?”
What he would do as president: He sent a handwritten outline of his plan to build an idyllic “eco-village” called Birthday Lake, which he later tweeted. Mothers could “safely experience pregnancy & birth” there, and children could be cared for afterward. He would not say if he envisioned the government building such places.
[From The NY Times]
It’s a mania focused on a very destructive, misogynistic reading of Christianity, combined with a narcissistic personality disorder and just flat-out megalomania. I can’t. I don’t even think it’s as simple as “Jared Kushner went to Kanye and convinced him to run for president to siphon votes from Biden and Kanye knows what he’s doing.” Kanye clearly does NOT know what he’s doing. I think that Kushner and other Republican operatives are just completely running Kanye’s campaign and Kanye has barely any comprehension of what’s happening. At all.
Also: Kanye has been tweeting nonstop about his music contract, owning his masters, and… politics, or something. I really don’t care! But he did call himself “Baby Putin.” So there’s that.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 16, 2020
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.
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