Imagine if you wanted to promote a new album (or two). What better way to do so than by getting everyone talking about you and linking yourself to the man everyone has been talking about since that fateful escalator ride nearly three years ago?
That is the most plausible way to read the sudden burst of Twitter activity from rapper Kanye West, including his embrace of President Trump, whose job approval rating is up but still below 50 percent. West has a pair of upcoming musical projects and he is simply practicing good marketing.
Then again, isn’t that what people were saying about Trump himself until the wee small hours of election night 2016? That the real estate developer and “Apprentice” host wasn’t running a real campaign but was instead seeking attention and engaging in some kind of new branding exercise? That he was really interested in teaming with then-Breitbart chief Steve Bannon and then-Fox News head Roger Ailes, among others, in launching Trump TV?
As it turned out, virtually all cable news might as well be Trump TV — mainly because Trump is the president of the United States.
It isn’t terribly likely that West wants to follow in Trump’s footsteps. But Trump’s election suggests that a celebrity of West’s stature — or Oprah Winfrey’s — possibly could. Even a B-list celebrity can far exceed the name recognition of an A-list politician, short of an incumbent president or vice president.
Trump used his celebrity to suck all the oxygen away from the 16 professional politicians seeking the Republican presidential nomination so none of them could really break through. He attracted an amount of free media coverage that could choke even a well-funded campaign’s advertising budget.
Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Jeb Bush both had money and stratospheric name recognition. Neither of them possessed a modicum of Trump’s star power. They were afterthoughts when they weren’t Trump’s foils, even if Clinton came tantalizingly close to becoming president while Bush … did not.
Republicans say they hate it when celebrities dabble in politics. Shut up and sing, etc., etc. Yet they have elected Trump and Ronald Reagan president, Arnold Schwarzenegger governor of California, Fred Thompson Tennessee senator, Sonny Bono California representative, Fred Grandy Iowa representative, and song-and-dance man George Murphy California senator.
Scores of washed-up entertainers have enjoyed a second act as conservative activists just by endorsing the occasional Republican or expressing (however cantankerously) center-right opinions. Bona fide star Clint Eastwood got to speak to an empty chair at the 2012 Republican National Convention.
Polling expert Ariel Edwards-Levy has noted the explosion in West’s popularity among Republicans after doing little more than interspersing his motivational tweets with a few blase pro-Trump statements. Republicans were once 63 percentage points more likely to view West negatively than positively. Now that gap is only 9 points. Among Democrats, it remains 55 — and will probably grow the more West is associated with Trump.
A little over a decade ago, West’s best-known political opinion was that President George W. Bush does not care about black people, expressed in frustration during a telethon for Hurricane Katrina’s victims. This is roughly akin to the Dixie Chicks reviving themselves as a musical mainstay at conservative conferences.
The Democrats’ celebrity bench is even deeper than the GOP’s, though people at the height of their musical or Hollywood careers are less likely to throw it all away by running for office. Al Franken, D-Minn., wound up having to resign from the Senate in disgrace. At some point, however, a truly famous performer could easily decide to ruin the ambitions of a Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., or former Democratic Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.
That’s where the Trump precedent becomes daunting for West or anyone else tempted to try. Expressing political opinions in our polarized culture is an excellent way to alienate vast swathes of your fan base. Singer-songwriter Ted Nugent and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore are now identified more with their ideology (and worst comments) than their prepolitical careers. Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel is seen as an extension of the office of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Before Trump started dabbling more heavily in politics, his brand was wealth and glamor, a permanent episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” Once he got political, Trump was known as a birther, then the man who shouts at Fox News in the White House, an identity with less universal appeal.
West may have the “dragon energy” to transcend all this. Wife and reality TV star Kim Kardashian clearly wants to hedge their bets, however, periodically wading in with cautionary tweets to protect the brand. This approach won’t work if he ever gets serious about his political activism. Just ask first daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump.
Politics has been ridiculed as show business for ugly people. Bring in some real celebrities and they can win it all — except for the fact they have too much to lose.
