Kanye West Just Announced His Plans To Run For President - Maybe It's Not Such A Terrible Idea
In case you missed it, Kanye West used his Video Vanguard award acceptance speech at last night’s VMAs to announce his plans to run for president in 2020. Here’s the long, slightly ramble-y speech cut down to its most important points:
The Youths
'Bro, bro, listen to the kids.'
Having regrets
'I think about it sometimes, like it crosses my mind when I go to a baseball game and 60,000 people boo me. It crosses my mind a little bit. I think, if I had to do it all again, what would I have done? Would I have worn a leather shirt? Would I have drank half a bottle of Hennessy and given the rest to the audience? Y'all know you drank that bottle too. If I had a daughter at that time, would I have went on stage and grabbed the mic from someone else's...
The problem was the contradiction. The contradiction is: I do fight for artists, but in that fight I somehow was disrespectful to artists. I didn't know how to say the right thing, the perfect thing.'
Award shows:
'I still don't understand award shows. I don't understand how they get five people who worked their entire life one sold records, sold concert tickets, to come stand on a carpet and for the first time in their life be judged on a chopping block and have the opportunity to be considered a loser. I don't understand it, brah. I don't understand when the biggest album and the biggest video... I've been conflicted, bro! I just wanted people to like me more. F*** it bro.'
Art:
'I will die for the art, for what I believe in. The art ain't always gonna be polite. Y'all might be thinking right now, "I wonder, did he smoke something before he came here?" The answer is yes, I rolled up a little something to knock the edge off.
'I'm confident, I believe in myself. We the millennials, bro. This is a new mentality. We're not gonna control our kids with brands. We're not gonna teach low self esteem and that to our kids. We gonna teach our kids that they can be something. We're gonna teach our kids that they can stand up for themselves. We're gonna teach our kids to believe in themselves. If my grandfather was here right now he would not let me back down. I don't know what I'm finna lose after this, but don't matter though cause it's not about me.
'It's about ideas bro, new ideas bro. People with ideas. People who believe in truth. And yes, as you probably could have guessed by this moment, I have decided in 2020 to run for president.'
And while a bunch of people are rolling their eyes, making jokey memes, and generally laughing at the prospect of Kanye West, rapper and holder of often controversial, poorly expressed opinions, going into politics, we’d like to point out that a Kanye run for presidency isn’t that bad of an idea. Better than Donald Trump, right?
For one thing, he’s clearly very, very passionate. About a lot of stuff; the arts, music, freedom of expression. In a time when people are feeling apathetic and disillusioned with how the US is run, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone ranting a bit, if it means they actually care? This is a guy who would actually fight to get things sorted out, because he won’t put up with being silenced.
He’s a talker, too. He’s honest, and won’t mince his words or try to market his ideas in the most appealing, politically correct package. Having Kanye in the political arena could mean that we finally get to talk about some of the big, more controversial issues. Remember years ago, when he was accusing George Bush of not caring about black people? Kanye doesn’t care if bringing up race scares or offends you. He just wants to discuss it.
Look, we’re not saying we’re fully vouching for Kanye in the White House - apart from anything else, he has a track record for doing and saying some pretty stupid things. But his willingness to discuss race, his anti-gun stance, and his genuine emotional investment in the stuff that goes on in the world, could make a real difference. So what's so bad about addding his voice to the debate? The voice of someone who’s angry, passionate, and actually cares about the injustices of the world, to a sometimes unsettling degree. Someone who really doesn’t care about making people uncomfortable. And someone who genuinely wants to make a difference. And again, he's no Donald Trump.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.