Kanye West, legally Ye. NBC News.
Kanye West praised Hitler and doubled down on anti-Semitism in a bizarre three hour interview on Alex Jones Infowars. NBC News. Appearing with Nick Fuentes and wearing a strange mask, Kanye went off on Jews and praised Nazis. West said “The Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world,” and “I see good things about Hitler, also.” The social media site Parler, which was due to be purchased by West, has now clarified that the deal had been canceled last month. Alex Jones clarified that he did not share West's anti-Semitic beliefs during the interview. West said he is running for President in 2024 though it seems extremely unlikely now.
Infowars has video of the interview here. The interview is also available on Bitchute.
My Comment:
The self destruction of Kanye West has been fascinating to watch and, quite frankly, sad. West was on top of the world a few years ago but ever since he divorced Kim Kardashian he's been on a major downward spiral. He has always been a controversial figure but I never expected him to go full Nazi.
And indeed, that's what West did here. Many times when people are accused of racism or anti-Semitism, it's overblown or false, but it's pretty much impossible to interpret West's words as anything other than full on bigotry. "Hitler had some good ideas" is just not considered acceptable in the United States today. Saying he loves Nazis isn't going to play either, even if he claims that he loves Jews too.
West probably lost whatever public sympathy he had now. A few people support his views but basically nobody in the mainstream does. Even Alex Jones looked deeply uncomfortable during the clips I saw from the interview. Jones, who has been rather unfairly targeted by mass media and lawsuits, is probably more acceptable to the mainstream than West, unless this interview takes him down with him. That's very possible as people aren't going to be happy with Jones for giving West a platform and Jones is already unpopular.
What is sad about this is that West is pretty clearly sick. He appears to be in a manic episode. West has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and he is pretty clearly not getting the help he needs. I think if he was on his meds he wouldn't be saying the things he is saying.
But I do think that West does appear to have hatred in his heart. West seems to actually hate Jews and that isn't something that is caused by bipolar disorder. This goes far beyond making the case that Jews are overrepresented in the entertainment industry and give black performers bad record contracts. That argument might even be true but West doesn't seem to care anymore. He just seems to want Jews to be gone.
I mentioned recently that I thought the whole meeting between Kanye West and Donald Trump was a trap planned by Milo Yiannopoulos. Well, this seems like part two of that plan. West is so toxic now that I think he is going to bring other people down with him. Milo and Fuentes are already persona non-grata, but anyone that praises West after this point would be committing career suicide. I don't think it's enough to bring down Trump, as long as Trump denounces him, but people are going to scrub their previous support of him.
For the record, I too, denounce what West said. I believe in free speech but supporting Nazis is too far for me. Denying the Holocaust, which West kinda did during the interview is just stupid, it's a historical fact. I do think there are bad people in the United States that happen to be Jews, but I judge them based on their actions, not because they belong to an arbitrary ethnic group. Blaming an entire ethnic group due to the actions of individuals is always wrong and I won't support what West said here.
Speaking of Milo, I think it's disgusting what he is doing here. West bears Most of the responsibility for this, and we shouldn't downplay Nick Fuentes putting these ideas in his head. But it's Milo that's using West's breakdown to attack the Republican Party and Donald Trump. He's taking advantage of a man that's in the middle of a manic episode and if anyone deserves to be canceled for this, it's him.
I don't think that West can recover from this. Anti-Semitism doesn't play well and I think West has burned pretty much every bridge he has left. Trump's not going to stick with him, he no longer has Parler, and I can't imagine any music producer working with him after this. Forget about his presidential campaign now.
I do have to say that respecting Kanye West's free speech rights is why we know about this. Had Alex Jones simply shut down the interview people wouldn't know how bad West was. Before this interview most people thought that West was anti-Semitic, but nobody really thought he was pro-Nazi. If we hadn't gotten the word directly from West's mouth we might have been fooled by him. Given the fact that the man is supposedly running for president, it's important to know what he believes. He never had a chance of winning anyways, but assuming he did this was critical, need to know information.
Some people are either afraid or enthused that West's comments will encourage more anti-Semitism. I don't really think it will. Anybody that has seen the video is not going to take seriously a man dressed like West was. To be fair, it is pretty rare for people to go full Nazi in public these days, but, again, everyone knows that West is not mentally well and is not making good arguments.
I'm more worried that the powers that be will use this to further crack down on free speech rights or gun rights. It would only take one nutjob, either on his own or given some "encouragement" to use Kanye's words and shoot up something and then things get bad. I don't think that would happen but these things have happened in the past...
I do worry that West might not have hit rock bottom yet. I don't think he will get violent but I do worry that he could hurt himself. Like I said, he's bipolar and if he has a depressive episode after this mania fades, he might kill himself. West has said he was suicidal in the past and when he realizes what he has done to his life he might decide to end things. I sincerely hope that he gets the help he so desperately needs.
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