Kanye West for President

Didn't get the REAL blow to the status quo last time. This might do the trick.

Let me explain. I’m not a Kanye West fan. I’m really not. Plus, by the time you read this, it’s probably all been written off as a ploy for Yeezy to sell more clothes through the Gap. But ladies and gentlemen… it’s 2020! Anything is possible! So let’s analyze this carefully, just for kicks. What would be the implications of a Kanye West candidacy?

Don’t get me wrong. There is a risk. We could become a laughing stock on the world stage. We could have wandering, overhyped speeches that don’t really land on a point. We could have chaos and unpredictability and ….wait… Ok, but there still is a little bit of a risk.

Let us however go through some of the pluses. If Kanye West were to actually follow through and start putting together a Presidential campaign (let’s face it: the “seriousness” of a candidacy takes a back seat to the pocketbook of a candidate when it comes to garnering electioneering and campaigning talent), then there are three monstrous improvements we’ll see, automatically, in comparison with the last one, and possibly the last several.

The Debates

There is no question that our general election debates have become nigh upon useless. Even with the supposed entertainment factor of reality star carnival barker on the stage in 2016, we still got robbed. It was mostly a standup routine from both of them, but a decidedly unfunny one.

Kanye would add a triangulation opportunity (always welcome; who can forget Admiral Stockdale? To say nothing of Perot…) to show that the two sides are obviously talking past each other and breaking Butch’s Rule. And as a bonus they would simply be actually entertaining. Not Bernie Sanders entertaining, but still entertaining.

The Electoral College

There is a lot of talk about getting rid of the electoral college because every vote should count equally, etc. Personally I think that’s a bunch of hogwash. The EC was put in place to protect the rights of less populous (predominantly rural) states from being completely dominated by the urban population centers. “No Farms No Food” remember? Some of this protection (most egregiously in the Senate, which, in case we’ve forgotten, is there for the same purpose as the EC) results in really screwed up Farm Bills, but we can’t have everything. Avoiding having the states eating all the food from making ALL the decisions for the states that make all the food; that all by itself should be enough to pause on scratching the EC.

This would toss the EC up a bit. There is a chance, depending on how the campaign is waged, that some states could be in the mix that weren’t in the mix before… states that aren’t currently “swing” states, for instance.

Two Party System

Even if Kanye were to make a dent, or even just affect the outcome in one or two states (in other words, actually make a difference unlike our good friends at the LP or GP), then people will start to wonder if it’s possible to act outside of the duopoly that is the current system. A duopoly that is so pernicious, and so divisive, and so maniacal as to result in the following: 

The number one predictor of how a Governor responded to Covid-19… lockdown/no lockdown masks/no masks, etc… was not the density, the region, the climate, the dominant industry, demographics… no the number one predictor was what party the Governor was in. Statistically impossible for that to be a coincidence, yet it’s true.

That by itself is enough to question whether Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 was anywhere near as groundbreaking and table turning as many would like to make it out to be. The same levers of power are in place… new boss, same as the old boss, just a little wackier.

Kanye is not my first, second, or top 100 choice for President of these United States… and he still might outrank Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Sad but true. But more importantly, the effect his candidacy could have are on balance probably positive… maybe.

Let’s hear what he has to say. What could go wrong? It’s 2020.