"I almost killed my daughter!" I almost killed my daughter! " Tears in her eyes and broken voice, Kanye West shouts to the crowd massed in front of him. The scene was filmed in Charleston, South Carolina, during the first meeting of the famous rapper. Launched in the presidential race since July 4, the candidate delivered a disjointed speech, reflecting his ideological positioning. An already chaotic start to the campaign, with the elections taking place in four months.
Supporting Donald Trump in his early days, the rapper went it alone for the presidential election. And if rumors said "out of the race" a few days ago, the singer gave his first meeting in Charleston, South Carolina this Sunday.
More a “happening” than a real political gathering, for François Durpaire, historian and specialist in the United States. "He plays that bastard side. It is a somewhat show-biz application, which has no political impact. The goal is to get people talking about him, his agenda, ”he says. And in particular the release of his album scheduled for ... July 24. “From the start, we knew that it was not politically credible. Besides, the big political sites in the United States do not consider it as a serious phenomenon ”, underlines the specialist.
Unclear political positioning
Yet in some so-called "key" states, where Donald Trump was narrowly elected, Kanye West is said to be behind Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, according to polls. "For a third party to really have an impact on the election, there needs to be a serious campaign and funds and it is not certain that he wants to spend a lot of money. It takes a billion dollars, we are very far from it, ”assures François Durpaire.
Above all, Kanye West did not find his political target. “It gives the feeling of wanting to cast a large net, with no political coherence. He is skeptical of the reality of slavery, sometimes anti-abortion, sometimes he uses images of demonstrations against police violence in these clips. It's hard to know who it is for. Perhaps to the African-American conservative electorate, and that means that he is hunting on Donald Trump's lands, ”replies Marie-Cécile Naves, sociologist and specialist from the United States. "The African-American electorate will not vote for him because Kanye West is not seen as a stable activist, with a stable political conduct," analyzes his side François Durpaire.
VIDEO. Kayne West in tears at her first meeting
An instability linked by some to the bipolarity from which the singer says he suffers. And who, if he acceded to the White House, could earn him his post, because of the 25th amendment to the Constitution which can be invoked if the president is considered unfit to exercise his functions. But the procedure is far from simple.
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In the meantime, after missing the deadline to appear on the official list of candidates in several states, Kanye West is in any case registered in Oklahoma. And his meeting in Charleston was to allow him to collect 10,000 signatures from voters in South Carolina to appear on the ballots of that state, according to the local newspaper Post and Courier.
Kanye West, "a Black Trump"
A “Kanye 2020” dossier was also declared to the Federal Election Commission on July 15. A form filed "once an individual has raised or spent more than $ 5,000 on campaign activities, which triggers candidacy status under the federal campaign finance law," recalls the Rolling Stones magazine .
But what can he do during the next four months between him and the election? Not much for François Durpaire. "He will not participate in debates. It comes at a time in the campaign when everything is already frozen. Four months before date, it's even less than this Coluche did in France! The political bipolarity of the country is established, Joe Biden came out strong from the Democratic primary and the president is the natural candidate for the Republicans. However, the historian considers it unlikely that the rapper's candidacy would be withdrawn. “It should be a candidate and a serious campaign, because a politician plays on the long term, on a political career. This is not the case for Kanye West ”.
If almost all observers of the American political world agree that the rapper will not be elected, a certain caution remains in order. “Independent Ralph Nader deprived Democrat Al Gore in 2000 of enough votes to prevent the election of George W. Bush. The green Jill Stein was considered a thorn in Hillary Clinton's side in 2016. […] None of these names made it to the White House, but they had an impact, ”recalls the Washington Post , cited by Courrier International. "The legacy of Donald Trump is still to prove that a man from entertainment (Editor's note: entertainment) can be elected," recalls sociologist Marie Cécile Naves. Even if I find it hard to believe that he will go all the way, Kanye West is such a wacky character… he's a bit of a Black Trump ”.