Editor's Note: John Avlon is a senior political analyst at CNN. The opinions expressed in this comment are yours. Read more articles like this at cnne.com/opinion.
(CNN) - We need to talk about Kanye.
It's easy to dismiss the rapper's bizarre bipolar disorder presidential campaign, particularly after his series of disjointed tweets after his chaotic launch event in South Carolina. His behavior forced his wife, Kim Kardashian West, to ask for compassion and respect for the privacy of her family.
The situation seems closer to an unfortunate public collapse than to a presidential race.
But there are a handful of Republicans in Trump's orbit who are pushing West's supposedly independent presidential initiative. According to CNN, one of those agents linked to the president's campaign, Lane Ruhland, has presented documents to put the artist on the ballot in Wisconsin.
But West and his team are working to officially participate in several states, including Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri, including on Wyoming's self-styled "biblical life coach" list as West's running mate.
The rapper cannot win the election. You have missed too many deadlines to get on the ballot in too many states. But it could favor the reelection of President Donald Trump by diverting key portions of the black vote in places like Wisconsin and Ohio, with filing deadlines this week.
The artist who once stated that former President George W. Bush "does not care about blacks" - and whom former President Barack Obama once called "an asshole" - appears to be being duped by conservative agents.
If this all sounds a bit of a stretch, then you haven't been paying attention. In his essential and insightful new book, "It Was All a Lie," Republican lobbyist Stuart Stevens describes the discovery of a tried and true formula in his party campaigns in Mississippi, "a truth as basic and immutable as the fact of that water freezes below 35 ° Celsius - race was the key to much of American politics and certainly all of southern politics. It was really very simple: The Democratic candidate needed more than 90% of the black votes to win. If a significant portion voted for a third party, the Republican would win.
Whether West is on board or not, that's what's happening here, plain and simple.
Remember: The rapper referenced Trump's Make America Great Again slogans, praising him for his economy management and his shared "dragon energy," an evolution that paralleled his link to Evangelical Christianity, which inspired his latest album. . A messianic streak also fits the urge to run for president, but there is nothing sacred about this career.
According to the New York Times, one of the officers allegedly behind West's attempts to get on the ballot, Mark Jacoby, had been arrested on fraud charges in 2008 and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor (not a small irony given the Trump team's misdirected obsession with the problem.)
Another, Gregg Keller, former executive director of the American Conservative Union (ACU) and close to ACU President Matt Schlapp, whose wife, Mercedes Schlapp, worked at the Trump White House before joining the campaign. . To give an idea of Keller's self-conception, his social media avatar is a close-up of his hair - not including his face - along with a description of him from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper as a "dark prince of secret."
However, another agent linked to the West initiative, according to New York Magazine, is Chuck Wilton, whose wife, Wendy Wilton, is a person designated by Trump in the Department of Agriculture.
This is not an independent campaign - they are dirty tricks from members of conservatism, which had posters of the infamous Republican operative Lee Atwater on their walls when they were kids.
The rapper may feel like he's on a mission from God instead of the recesses of Republican operatives. This conservative attempt to attract leftist voters always seems to attract enough "useful idiots" to make it worthwhile.
In 2000 Ralph Nader won more than 97,000 votes in the state of Florida as a Green Party candidate, in part because Democrat Al Gore was allegedly not strong enough in the environment for his liking. Bush won the Sunshine State by 537 votes and finally the presidency. Therefore, it should not have been a surprise that Nader's repeat of the green campaign in 2004 appears to have been fueled by Republican agents trying to get him on the ballot.
This is a racial move, rather than a Green Party dream, but its impact could be the same: a split to conquer the focus of the people who are furthest from the community interest at heart. Thoughtful voices, such as Chance The Rapper, have typically spoken on social media about a West campaign, presumably without realizing there are Republican agents in the middle. But one piece of news comes from Keller retweeting Chance's post with a gif of Jack Nicholson's evil grin from "The Departed." Another revelation is that Trump himself retweeted Kanye's claims that he could take black votes from Biden, covering up a message that could be true.
West is one of the most talented hip-hop artists of his generation. But make no mistake: every vote for him is a vote for Trump, part of a broader plan to help the president divide Democrats and win reelection, fulfilling one of the rapper's lyrical prophecies: "We are at war with us. themselves ».
So, however, notice what West and his promoters are doing here, be careful to say too confidently that an unskilled celebrity with a self-promotion campaign cannot have an impact on the presidential race. After all, this is 2020, a year in which anything can and will happen.
Kanye West
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