Kanye West legally Ye. Cosmopolitan via Wikipedia.
Kanye West had dinner with Donald Trump to discuss both men's presidential runs but more attention is being paid to the men West brought with him. The Hill. Nick Fuentes and Milo Yiannopoulos joined Ye at the dinner with Trump at Mar-A-Lago. Fuentes is often described as anti-Semitic and has denied the holocaust. Trump says he did not know the other men were coming and said he was trying to help West, who has his own anti-Semitism scandal. The dinner happened last Tuesday but erupted as yet another scandal for West.
My Comment:
People are blaming everyone but the person I think is responsible for this incident and that is Milo Yiannopoulos. Milo was a huge Trump backer back in the day but he self-immolated quite a while back after getting canceled for saying gays recruit via pedophilia and for describing his own abuse as a child in a manner that made it seem like he was justifying it.
I tend to think that Milo got a raw deal since he was describing his own history of sexual abuse. Given the fact that he was in fact a victim of sexual abuse, he should have gotten a 2nd chance. But nobody was having it on either the left or the right. The left hated Milo for being Milo and the right were disgusted by his comments. Milo blames Trump for not saving him, but it's little surprise he didn't given what he said and the fact that Milo was an outrageous figure even before that and many people felt he was a liability.
Milo famously vowed revenge back in 2020 against both Trump and the Republican Party and I think this was it. Milo is fairly infamous himself but he is nothing compared to Nick Fuentes. I don't know too much about him other than the fact that Kiwi Farms has an entire section of their website dedicated to making fun of him. He's pretty infamous and disliked even on the right. I consider him a Richard Spencer figure, one of those far-right people that inexplicably only target the right. I know that Fuentes came to prominence with his fights with Turning Point USA founder Christian Kirk.
To me this seems like a PR attack and a fairly classic one. Have someone with some level of trust and respect with the target and invite someone notorious. It's a good way to make it seem like someone approves of someone or something they don't and I think that is what happened here.
What is strange is that Trump fell for it. I can see why Trump met with Kanye West, he's a long time friend (or at least was, I hope, after this stunt) and Trump certainly doesn't want West to run in 2024. West did not do much in 2020 largely because black voters had no interest in him and that was before he canceled himself with his Jew comments. West won't even do much to draw votes away from Democrats and if he takes votes from anyone it will be the people that either hate both parties, accelerationists or people that just vote as a joke. Still, Trump's the kind of guy that wants to help his friends and West was until this point.
But what I don't get is why Trump didn't simply walk away when he saw Milo there. I can't really blame him for not knowing who Nick Fuentes was, not many people did before this, but he should have known that Milo was up to no good. And if he didn't doesn't Trump have screeners? None of his people recognized Milo or Fuentes and said "Hey, maybe we should walk, this doesn't seem right". That is a pretty big failure.
I do think that Trump should obviously cut off West at this point. Yes, he's in the middle of a breakdown and needs help, but Trump has to think about his 2024 chances. This is a scandal that he could have avoided easily and the left are taking advantage. It's so early in the 2024 cycle that this story will be dead long before the first votes are case but if he keeps associating with West it could remain relevant.
As for West himself, he has zero chance of winning the Presidency. He would have been a long shot long before the anti-Semitism scandal but he has no chance now. He's pissed off a lot of people with that and the few people that were still with him are now against him now. And if Milo and Fuentes are the people running his campaign than it will be entertaining if nothing else.
What is said is that West obviously needs some help. Picking a fight with the entire Jewish community was not a smart move and you can argue if what he said is true or not, but the way he said it was out of line and made him a ton of enemies. Any person who made the comments West made is either past the point of caring or deeply disturbed. And for West, I think it's the 2nd one. I do worry he might harm himself or someone else. Given the report that he was showing people explicit photos of his ex-wife, it's clear he's totally out of control. I can't blame Trump for trying to help, Trump has been able to get through to him in the past. But it sure didn't work out this time.
I do think that both Fuentes and Milo are going to be removed from West's campaign and life pretty soon. Laura Loomer just leaked a bunch of texts from Milo that said that West was gay. Assuming West hears about it, and he will, I can't see him sticking with Milo after that. And Fuentes is not a stable person either. I can't imagine that West will stick with them for much time, though, if it does, at least Kiwi Farms will be happy.
The one question I have is if West was in on Milo's attack or not. West had to have known that Fuentes is not the kind of person that Trump wants to be associated with and West had to know that this was going to be a scandal. I don't think West is a fool and it may have been that he went along with Milo's scheme because he wants Trump out of the race. It's either that or he's totally lost it and isn't attached to reality anymore. I would believe either.
As for Trump's campaign, I don't think there will be much in terms of long term damage from this, but one of the major problems with Trump was always the people helping him. The fact that he didn't have anyone to stop this before it blew up is not a good sign for his campaign. This was a gift to Trump's enemies on both the left and the right.
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