After weeks of infamy as the most famous Black face of the conservative movement, Kanye West wants off the Trump train, claiming he’s been “used” and blaming fellow controversy-courter Candace Owens for ideologically seducing him.
Owens unveiled the logo for her “Blexit” movement – as in a “black exit” from the Democratic party – at Saturday’s Turning Points Young Black Leadership Summit, boasting that West had helped design the logo, which he now denies. Not only is he pulling out of any further involvement with the campaign, he says, but “I never wanted any association with Blexit.”
The rapper claims to be washing his hands of politics, tweeting regret that “I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in.” He pledged to focus on creative endeavors going forward, though some might say his Oval Office performance earlier this month, during which he hugged the President and called his Make America Great Again hat a “Superman cape,” was pretty creative.
His bizarre monologue also inspired some jaw-dropping performances on the part of CNN pundits, who wasted no time in making the kind of racist statements they’d normally crucify their fellow commentators for uttering.
Kanye’s embrace of Trump had some Democratic strategists panicking. While his Oval Office lovefest earned him plenty of backlash on social media, enough fans seemed to be following his example and “walking away” from the Democratic party to garner Trump a 36 percent approval rating among African-Americans – twice his ratings with that group last year.
West cleared up a few of his political stances on Twitter before switching out of politics mode entirely, tweeting out his support for asylum-seekers, “common-sense gun laws,” and prison reform. In June, the rapper and his wife, Kim Kardashian, actually secured a presidential pardon for Alice Johnson, a 63-year-old woman who had spent the last 22 years in jail on nonviolent drug charges.
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