{"id":57890,"date":"2016-11-28T10:57:27","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T14:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=57890"},"modified":"2016-11-28T10:57:27","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T14:57:27","slug":"kanye-west-if-i-voted-i-would-have-voted-for-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=57890","title":{"rendered":"Kanye West: If I voted, I would have voted for Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-9-56-35-am\"<\/a>
\nBy LOUIS NELSON
\nPOLITICO<\/span><\/p>\n

Hip-hop mogul Kanye West announced at a Thursday night concert in California that he did not vote in the presidential election, but if he had, he would have voted for Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

“I told y\u2019all I didn\u2019t vote, right?\u201d Kanye said, standing on the floating stage he uses on his Saint Pablo tour. \u201cBut if I would\u2019ve voted, I would\u2019ve voted for Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps predictably, the attendees at West\u2019s San Jose, California, show reacted mostly negatively to the rapper\u2019s pronouncement, with some throwing items at the stage. West continued though into an extended monologue, which was reported by the music website Pitchfork<\/a>and others, focused on the election, political discourse and Trump\u2019s communication style, which West said he found impressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nonpolitical methods to speaking that I like, that I feel were very futuristic. And that style, and that method of communication, has proven that it can beat a politically correct way of communication,” West said at the concert. He bemoaned that he had been told that he should avoid praising Trump because he is a celebrity, telling the crowd that Trump\u2019s rhetorical style was not simply \u201centertaining \u2014 I actually think that his approach was absolutely genius, because it f—ing worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

He urged African-Americans to \u201cstop focusing on racism\u201d because \u201cthis world is racist, OK?\u201d<\/p>\n

The rapper\u2019s pro-Trump monologue put him at odds with the political leanings of his wife, reality-TV star Kim Kardashian, who said publicly during the presidential campaign that she was supporting Hillary Clinton. The celebrity couple posed for a photo with the former secretary of state that was posted to Instagram<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

West, who announced plans to run for president in 2020 in a rambling acceptance speech at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, reaffirmed those plans Thursday night. He told the crowd that \u201cI\u2019ve got some ideas about the way we should connect our ideas\u201d and said the government should rely on the popular proposals from both parties to govern. \u201cThere\u2019s things that Benjamin Carson believes in that I believe in,\u201d West said, adding that the retired neurosurgeon should be a consultant to the president, as should Clinton and Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t say 2020 because, out of disrespect to our president at all. I\u2019m not saying that, \u2018Oh man, that just means that anybody can win.\u2019 That\u2019s not what I\u2019m saying when I say 2020,\u201d he told the crowd. \u201cI\u2019ve just said I\u2019ve got some ideas about the way we should connect our ideas. That we should use opposite parties. That the Republicans, that the Democrats, that everyone that ran that had an idea that people agreed with should be the collective ideas that are used to run the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that he was fine with the uptick in public outbursts of racism and hate speech because \u201cthey exposing themselves, Bro.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes things that you might think are bad need to happen, in order for change to f—ing happen. Sometimes you might have to not get your way to really understand what to do in the future, to be able to get your way.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not the first time West has waded into the political world. Obama called West a \u201cjackass\u201d for interrupting the acceptance speech of pop star Taylor Swift at the 2009 Video Music Awards, an insult the president repeated<\/a> in 2012, this time tacking on a \u201cbut he\u2019s talented\u201d compliment.<\/p>\n

West apparently responded on his 2010 single \u201cPower,\u201d rapping that \u201cthey say I was the abomination of Obama\u2019s nation. Well that\u2019s a pretty bad way to start the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

___
\nhttp:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/11\/kanye-west-trump-support-231601<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}