President Trump and Kanye West hug in the Oval Office. Yahoo News/Getty.
As you are most certainly aware Kanye West and President Trump had meeting today in the Oval Office. Every news outlet in the world can tell you the details of the meeting and if you want a summery, albeit one with bias, here's Yahoo News. However, I am much more interested in the political implications of the meeting.
First of all, I have to say that this was an obvious win/win for both President Trump and Kanye West. The benefits for Trump should be pretty obvious. Trump can use this meeting to deflect accusations of racism, which he has unfairly had to deal with for a long time. He may also gain some support from Kanye fans, which are a legion. And he can be seen as listening to the black community, even if Kanye isn't a typical member of that community.
Trump got some rare positive news coverage from this event as well. Not from the actual news outlets of course, but those news outlets are going to be forced to report on what Kanye said, much of which is positive towards President Trump. They will have to try and spin it but if a major celebrity is praising President Trump there is only so hard they can spin before they look stupid.
It also gives the media something to talk about other than President Trump himself. I am convinced that at least part of Trump's bump in popularity is due to the fact that they have for once been covering something other than him. The Kavanaugh hearings, for all its obvious faults, at least forced the media to attack someone else's character and I am guessing that this meeting with Kanye will distract them for another day or two.
So what does Kanye get out of this? From a business sense it makes sense. Kanye is always coming out with new music and he's opened up his customer base to people that otherwise not mention him. I think there is an entire market for pro-Trump entertainers as the former success of Rosanne and the current success of Las Man Standing. I'm not really a fan of Kanye's music, but I think there are a lot of Republicans that are listening to his music for the first time and may end up purchasing some as well. And I think that Kanye is talented enough that he won't loose too many fans and even if he does lose some it will be offset by the new ones.
Kanye is also helping his political ambitions as well. Though I don't know if he is serious about a run in 2024, meeting with President Trump can help him with those ambitions. He's setting himself up as a centrist candidate that appeals to both black people and white people. And he is displaying obvious concern for his community.
I think that Kanye and his wife, Kim Kardashian are also being a lot smarter than other celebrities. Whatever you think of them, it's clear that they have the ear of the president. Doing so seems to be getting them policy results they want. Trump seems pretty committed to help Kanye with his efforts in criminal justice reform and economic growth for the black community, and Kim has gotten clemency for a few people she championed.
Doing so seems to be a lot smarter than just bashing the president. Trump has shown that he will listen to given advice and if more celebrities would try and find common ground they just might get some policy results. It might fail but it seems it would be a lot more effective than stumping for Democrats that are likely to not get elected or just going on social media rants.
Of course doing so has an obvious downside. The media and blue checkmark brigade on social media are eviscerating Kanye West. He has faced quite a bit of harassment and threats. CNN pretty much called him the "n" word last night and more than a few people are saying that Kanye West is insane. Kanye has deleted his social media and honestly I don't blame him.
Still, I have long said that the black community would be wise to not be so lockstep in support of the Democratic Party. It has led to the unacceptable situation where neither side tries to help the black community as the Democrats take them for granted and the Republicans have no reason to try and court their vote. That might be changing now and it will probably lead to better results for blacks.
Finally, this whole story is peak 2018. If you had told me back in the day that I would be praising Kanye West while at the same time hating Taylor Swift I would have never believed you. I might not vote for him in 2024, but I do have to say that I like what Kanye is doing and I hope he's strong enough to keep doing it.
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