Kanye West has just been suspended from twitter for posting a swastika inside a Star of David. The social media paparazzi are having a field day with Ye's recent mental breakdown. Proponents on the left are trying desperately to tie him, a black musician, to white supremacy. People on the right, who thought Kanye spoke to conservative principles, are feverishly trying to remove all social media association with the rap musician, turned Kardashian, turned revival preacher, turned MAGA Trump supporter, turned potential 2024 presidential candidate, turned “unreality” star. Kanye West is simply going through a mental breakdown, but we need pray for his recovery not dance on his hospital bed. The important lesson to learn regarding Kanye’s breakdown is how cultural victimhood played into his seemingly self destruction. To put it mildly, seeking ever greater victim status is very powerful. And, like its hard drug equivalents, it takes ever greater doses to get the same effect.
In the old days, when the star status of our favorite public figures began to diminish, we would call the antics of those still seeking attention "eccentric." Well, move over Norma Desmond, Kanye is in town, and he just uttered that icon line, “I am ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille." Just as the classic movie, Sunset Boulevard depicted how quickly Hollywood devours its own aged and economically diminished stars, the current media apparat is feasting on the cracking of Kanye West’s mental faculties as his condition has him searching for an ever-greater victim status fix.
Invoking the image of the nebulous white supremacist is becoming a daily occurrence and everyone is getting into the game. Members of the media, congress, the president, and national security advisors all call out the evils of white supremacist at every mic’ed up opportunity. To give the movement legitimacy, the FBI is ever scouring the country looking for these elusive supremacy agitators. I do, however have more faith that the government supremacist seekers will find my $600.00 Venmo transaction long before they uncover and foil this terroristic network of white supremacist dissidents. However, in our current cultural decay, one could do no better in the victim power game than to invoke the white supremacy boogeyman.
We have seen this elixir of white supremacist victimhood play out before. Jesse Smollett claimed that on a below freezing night in Chicago, two MAGA supporting white nationalists jumped him on the street as he left a sandwich shop after midnight, first beating him, then affixing a noose about his neck. That was another case where the Power of victimhood superseded reality as success for the Empire TV movie star simply was not satisfying enough to a culture that demands more than excellence in one’s craft, it requires woke victimhood.
Claiming victim status feeds a powerful sense of self-righteousness and feeling self-righteous releases a slew of endorphins. The greater the mechanism of oppression, the greater the euphoric response. To this end, having one’s oppressing nemesis be a Nazi is like going for the gold. Well, let’s call it going for silver as there is one apparition of an oppressor being evoked that is even greater than white supremacists. For those bellying up to the victimhood bar to order their daily shot, sure they could order a shot of white supremacy and go about their merry day. But, if you really want the big daddy of victimhood, one must go to the top shelf and order a shot of God. For no greater oppressor is known than the Creator of all things, the Alpha and Omega, the Omnipresent. Is there any greater villain than a God that willing put one’s soul into the wrong genetic body?
Kanye West’s current foibles are merely a reflection of a culture that is in decay. I read time and again that our country is in cultural crisis, and because of our irreconcilable cultural differences, that we need a national divorce. Sadly, our country’s vapid cultural decay will not be solved with a simple divorce. Just like a real marriage divorce equivalent, both sides are pissed and will not rest until the divorce, not only drains every ounce of gold, but extracts every last pound of flesh. History does have an answer for how our national divorce truly ends, but my readers must wait for my next installment where we will meet in the stands of the great Flavian Amphitheatre to finish this story.