Tomorrow, today, or even before this piece is published, mercurial genius Kanye West could come out against President Trump’s tax cut, against The Wall, and endorse Democrats in the upcoming mid-terms. While Kanye obviously likes Trump personally, as far as I know, the music and fashion superstar has yet to endorse any of his policies.
In fact, before this whole Trump brouhaha exploded, Kanye West only followed a single account on Twitter, the one owned by his wife Kim Kardashian. Post-brouhaha, West has followed only two additional accounts: black conservative Candace Owens and … Emma González, the left-wing Parkland student committed to stripping us of our Second Amendment rights.
And that is okay because from what I am seeing, Kanye is not talking politics or policy or right or left. What he is talking about is freedom, specifically intellectual freedom, which is even more important than supporting MAGA.
My growing investment in Kanye (yes, I am excited by what I am seeing — so no, I am not here to deliver a pompous lecture warning others not to get excited) actually has nothing to do with seeing him in a Make America Great Again hat. Rather, what excites me is Kanye’s push to widen the Overton window.
The Overton window is what gauges the range of what is and is not acceptable political discourse, which decides what ideas will or will not be tolerated. And He Who Controls the Overton Window controls the future.
Right now, it is the media desperately hoping to control the range of ideas and discourse allowed. Naturally, they are desperately trying to shift the window to the left. Some quick examples:
Acceptable: Socialism, citizenship and drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, biological men using women’s restrooms, partial birth abortion, gun confiscation, Maxine Waters.
Unacceptable: Questioning Global Warming (science denier), opposing illegal immigration (racist), opposing same sex-marriage (homophobe), believing transgenders suffer from a mental illness (trans-phobe), arming qualified teachers (you hate children), Clarence Thomas.
By shifting the Overton window away from traditional ideas, by legitimizing radical left-wing thought while branding as unacceptable ideas that just ten years ago were considered mainstream, the establishment media is hoping to make it socially unacceptable to discuss and debate those ideas. Then, by extension, this speech blacklist will affect our politics by making it impossible for a candidate to run who holds certain values.
In other words, through the use of social pressure and bullying, the media is hoping to dramatically shift and or shrink the Overton window to a point where right-of-center ideas are considered beyond the pale.
Trump, of course, shattered at least two decades that found the media carefully and methodically manipulating the terms of legitimate debate. And now the Jihad is on to ensure Trump and his presidency are never normalized or legitimized. Yes, the media wants him impeached, but that is merely a goal within the existential battle to ensure Trump is only ever seen by the public as a virus, a freak event, a temporary abnormality.
Within the black community, the Overton window is so breathtakingly narrow, that many (including myself) have described it as a Thought Plantation, a place that so rigidly enforces what ideas, attitudes, and beliefs make a person black, it is unimaginable that such a thing could happen in America.
Even harsher is the way in which this conformity is enforced. Step off this Thought Plantation, and you are immediately annihilated as a sell-out, an Uncle Tom, an Oreo (black outside, white inside); and then have to face the likes of a pompous hater like Ta-Nehisi Coates (over) writing a gajillion word piece declaring you white.
But this is precisely what West is bristling against, this cultural fascism, this breathtaking ignorance that defines “black” as everything but skin color; this appalling tribalism that manipulates and oppresses the thought, beliefs, and individualism of millions of free men.
Kanye West might not agree with a single plank in the MAGA platform; he could very well be a gun-grabbing, pro-abortion, socialist fanatic.
I don’t care.
As long as West is standing up for a black man’s right to be intellectually free, as long as he is defending the right to break the chains of a suffocating conformity that has gripped that part of our population for decades, he deserves our support and praise.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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