WHY KANYE WEST VOTERS WILL BE RIGHT
So Kanye West is running for president in 2020. As surreal as it sounds, with an appropriate strategy and the massive media exposure he surely will have, he might have his chances, just like Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Political analysts will express their dismay and people on Twitter will caricature Kanye West voters as stupid, shallow, uneducated and irresponsible.
The truth is that those voters are probably more lucid than they think.
Just as Donald Trump voters, Nigel Farage voters in the UK or Marine LePen voters in France, Kanye West voters are actually expressing better than anyone else how disconnected professional politicians are from people’s realities and how politics are perceived as a big farce.
The message could be more or less: “If I have to choose between all this clowns, at least I will give my vote to one that is actually entertaining.”
In transforming politics in a communication exercise (developing advertising, PR campaigns, media strategies) both during and after the elections, professional politicians have drained it from its substance, opening the door to any kind of spin doctor and media-friendly celebrity. Western democracies have been overtaken by entertainment industry.
The problem is, we end up voting like we would in a reality show. We don’t want intelligent, experienced, nuanced people discussing with journalists. We want hysteric lunatics being outrageous and offering the best show ever.
It doesn’t mean that any of those anti-conventional public figures can not be good statesmen and stateswomen (we have no evidence yet). It means politics are not something sacred or serious anymore, but rather another area of our society where money, show and glittering self-promotion are more important than traditional, boring consistence.
But, while we are at it, we at Sra Rushmore would rather have George Clooney in the Oval Office.
