In the matter of rap artist Kanye West’s presidential campaign, the two storylines that most preoccupy the media are, a) Is he crazy? and b) Is this all a Republican plot to drain black votes away from Joe Biden?
Yet there’s a third question that could be asked: Does West have something valuable to say?
To answer that question, we might consider his presidential campaign platform, which he released on August 9. Right away, the title grabs one’s attention: “Creating a Culture of Life.” That phrase, of course, is borrowed from the Catholic Church and embraced by the Right to Life Movement.
Indeed, if one had to identify one particular issue that West seems most focused on, it’s strengthening the family in general and opposing abortion in particular. As the rapper said in an interview in October 2019,
Bro, we brainwashed out here. Come on . . . this a free man talking. Democrats had us voting Democrat for years . . . taking the fathers out of the home, Plan B, lowering our votes, making us abort our children. Gosh, they’re now killed.
It’s well known that, in recent years, West has undergone a religious conversion. He has led a gospel tour of the nation, including Sunday services in prisons.
That tour also took him, in November 2019, to Joel Osteen’s giant Lakewood Church in Houston. In his onstage conversation with Osteen, West seemed both faith-oriented and at least somewhat political. Standing in front of a banner that proclaimed, “Jesus is King,” West started by saying, “I know that God’s been calling me for a long time, and the devil’s been distracting me for a long time.” …
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