Monday, August 31, 2015

Kanye West Kicks Off The 2020 Presidential Campaign

by JASmius



Ten years ago I would have had a hearty laugh and ignored this story.  I desperately want to do so now.  But after eight years of "the world's biggest celebrity"....



....and the same disastrous dynamic now taking over the Republican Party as well....



....who's to say that a burned-out reefer addict who delivers acceptance speeches in a drugged-out haze won't capture the White House?

"Reality Television uber alles," and all that:

Kanye West shocked the crowd at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards Sunday night by announcing his intentions to run for president in 2020 in a long, rambling and, at times, incoherent acceptance speech.

In a move that would make Kim Kardashian first lady and Kris and [Bruce] Jenner White House babysitters to North West....

No, that's not a typo, that's what they named their kid.  Who knows, maybe they're Seahawks fans.  Heaven knows everybody else is.

....the music and fashion mogul fit in his political ambitions into his nearly thirteen-minute speech acceptance speech for the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, a sort-of lifetime achievement award.

If any of you Tea Party Trumpsters are scoffing at the prospect of President West, I'll just remind you that you are pushing to make as FLOTUS what Kevin Williamson recently described as a "plastic surgery disaster" who has posed nude for lesbian publications.



Compared to Melonia - oh, sorry, MelAnia - Trump, Kim Kardashian might actually be a step up in class.  Though we'd still have to change their unofficial title to "First Bimbo".

This serves as a very instructive illustration of how this country's culture is going down the crapper and taking the country down the same poop chute with it.  Indeed, this is the wages of "populism": Unseriousness.  If you had told me even a decade ago that the American voting public was going to become such a bipartisanly tacky, puerile collective laughingstock, so incapable of self-governance and popular sovereignty that they would seriously even entertain the notion of turning American politics and government into a hideously grotesque hybrid of Survivor, American Idol, and Dancing With The Stars, I'd have asked you if you were indulging from Kanye's "hospitality bowls".

But here we are ten years later.  And hey, Trump and West aren't "professional politicians" and therefore don't know what the hell they're doing, which is now their chief qualification for the highest office in the land, right?  Just the men we need in possession of nuclear launch codes.

Maybe President West's "nuclear football" will be his hospitality bowls.  President Trump's will be Melonia's - oh, sorry, MelAnia's - ample artificial cleavage.  Until he gets divorced again, anyway.


UPDATE: Ben Carson to the rescue?:

The Monmouth University Poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers finds Ben Carson and Donald Trump tied for the top spot. This marks the first time since July 26th that a poll in any of the first four nominating states has not shown Trump with a nominal lead. Not surprisingly, given the top two contenders in the poll, most Iowa Republicans prefer someone without a traditional political pedigree.

i.e. Somebody completely unqualified for the presidency.

At this early stage, though, the vast majority of voters say their eventual support could go to one of several other candidates in spite of their current preference.

When Iowa Republicans are asked who they would support in their local caucus, Ben Carson (23%) and Donald Trump (23%) tie for the top spot. The next tier of candidates includes Carly Fiorina (10%) and Ted Cruz (9%), followed by Scott Walker (7%), Jeb Bush (5%), John Kasich (4%), Marco Rubio (4%), and Rand Paul (3%). The last two Iowa caucus victors, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, each garner 2% of the vote. None of the other six candidates included in the poll register more than 1% support.

“These results mark a significant shake-up in the leaderboard from Monmouth’s Iowa poll taken before the first debate,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ. “Carson and, to a lesser extent, Fiorina have surged, while Walker has faded into the background.”

Even though Governor Walker is the best of all worlds, an anti-"establishment" candidate WITH ample executive experience AND a proven track record of conservative policy accomplishments AND Tea Party "street cred".  In a sane country and political climate, he'd already be the presumptive nominee.

But, to use a Carsonesque analogy, Americans are fervently clamoring for a seizure-prone, Parkinsons-suffering, epileptic ditch-digger to perform the delicate brain surgery on which their very lives depend.  TOTALLY rational, right?

If Dr. Carson turns out to be the compromise candidate that averts this burgeoning national tragedy, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

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