The Trump-Kanye-West Lunch

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Call it Trump meets the Yeezy Effect — the president’s astounding rendezvous with Kanye West. The rapper sat in the Oval Office on the visitor’s side of the Resolute Desk, across from the leader of the Free World. Suddenly Mr. West went into an epic, 10-minute rant in favor of Trump style capitalism and all that it could mean for minorities in this country. Drudge was all over it. What an only-in-the-Trump-Era moment.

It started with Mr. West challenging the notion that if one is black one has to be a Democrat. He then attributed that notion to the welfare system. Then he started talking about Chiraq, the sobriquet for the violence-racked American heartland city of Chicago. Then he spoke of how it took courage for him to wear, as he was wearing, a Make America Great Again hat.

The rapper was just getting tuned up. Before long Mr. West was soaring in praise of capitalism and the vistas that have been opened up for him by his shoe venture with Adidas. He said the market cap of Adidas has shot up to $38 billion. Then he was on to the importance of bringing manufacturing “onshore” into America. Then mental health and educational curricula.

Before the president or anyone else in the room could catch his breath, Mr. West started talking about the “trap door of the 13th Amendment.” He did, he said, say abolish the amendment that ended slavery in America. We took this part of his rant to mean not that he wants to bring back slavery but that the 13th Amendment has failed to end the travail of African Americans.

At one point Mr. West pointed out that the authors of the 13th Amendment didn’t look like the people they were liberating. Then he said that because it was illegal for slaves to read they were prohibited from reading the document of their liberation. Then he was talking about how African Americans need partners. “We need to talk to people,” he said. He sketched how he was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Then he was onto the opportunities in the pharmaceutical industries. Then bringing not only Adidas onshore but Foxconn and automobiles. Then he pulled out his cell phone and showed the president plans for a hydrogen powered plane and how he could use it for Air Force One. Then more talk about the importance of bringing jobs to America, so as to avoid the “cheapest factory ever,” the prison system.

It was an amazing performance, even for Kanye West. Not to mention President Trump. We wondered whether the Secret Service was going to cut Mr. West short. The president, though, sat listening to him seriously, occasionally cocking an eyebrow or looking at some members of the press crowding around, to make sure they were getting the import of what was happening.

It was happening, after all, with less than a month to go before a midterm election in which control of both houses of Congress is in the balance. How important is pop culture in all this? Hard to say, but the day before the newswires were agog over the decision of Taylor Swift to endorse the Democratic candidate for senator in Tennessee, Phil Bredesen.

We wouldn’t want to overestimate all this. The hustings, we’ve often said, are littered with failed predictions that one politician or another might break the grip the Democrats have on minority voters. The fact is, though, Mr. West echoed themes Mr. Trump struck during the 2016 campaign, during which he importuned African Americans to join his cause and try something new. Looks like Mr. Trump might have found his partner.


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