Kanye is MAGA No More

Kanye West short-lived foray into the MAGAsphere appears to be over. On Tuesday afternoon, West announced that he was “distancing” himself from politics, ending a bizarre period of political statements and support for hyperpartisan Conservative work which culminated in a surreal Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump.

Here’s West’s tweet that seems to indicate he is hanging up his MAGA hat for the time being.

West sent out several tweets before this that, out of context, are pretty confusing. It’s not completely clear what prompted his abrupt breakup with politics, but it appears that part of the split was a dispute with prominent political grifter Candace Owens over the branding of a new political movement called #BLEXIT (short for “black exit” from the Democratic party.)

The dispute appears to have started on the 27th, when a New York Post reporter tweeted out an image of BLEXIT shirts that were passed out at the Young Black Leadership Summit last week, claiming that West was the designer.

Because online media often functions like a diseased ouroboros eating and shitting half-reported information, the story took off, with more outlets attaching Kanye’s name to the project.

On Tuesday, Owens issued a clarifying statement, noting that West did not design the shirts, but did introduce her to the designer who did.

This matches West’s statement on Tuesday as well:

It appears West finally got tired of people using his name for various means. Trump has leaned heavily on his endorsement to attempt to pander to black Americans. During the president’s slow-pitch softball interview with Laura Ingraham last night, Ingraham again fed him a question about what Kanye’s support meant for the President, and Trump leaned in, telling an (almost certainly fake) story about a pollster coming into his office and saying “I do not believe how good these poll numbers are with African Americans.”

Some combination of all of this was too much, and West has decided he is done. In a series of tweets, West laid out what his actual values are (now).

RIP MAGA Kanye, hello centrist Kanye.