Episode 32 - That Big Rip in Reality You Just Saw From President Trump and Kanye
Date: 2018-06-19 | Duration: 18:32
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Transcript
[0:07] I’m sure you’re all seeing the news. Let me open up Twitter. I want to read you a tweet from President Trump and Kanye. Let’s see where would that be. Well, there’s been a little bit of tweeting going on today. So the tweet that’s getting everybody’s attention is that I guess Kanye tweeted a picture of himself wearing a hat that President Trump signed for him, and then he later tweeted this. This is one of the all-time great tweets. This will be in history as just one of the tweets that sort of defined what Twitter was all about. Kanye West, he says: “You don’t have to agree with Trump, but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals, and we have the right to independent thought.” And then President Trump tweets back, “Thank you Kanye, very cool.”
[1:10] Now, how big a deal is this? Let me give you some context. However big you think this is, you don’t know yet. It might be bigger than that. Now, what I would say is it’s clear at this point that there’s something going on with Kanye. He’s got a lot going on. He’s got albums, he fired his manager, so there’s a lot going on. I hope everything is good with him and I hope he knows exactly what he’s doing. I’m sure that we’re seeing genius.
[2:13] I’m sure that we’re seeing genius. I’m not sure if there’s anything else going on with him that we need to worry about. At a distance you can’t tell, but the genius part is pretty clear. Obviously, his tweeting is Trumpy and perfect. So let me tell you why I think this is maybe a bigger deal than your first impression right off the bat. On the celebrity level, it’s really good entertainment because it’s a case of, as we like to say, “Man Bites Dog.” It’s just something you didn’t expect. It’s a fish-out-of-water. It’s all those things. So it’s everything that makes it newsworthy, but that’s sort of the base level. There’s something bigger here, and that’s this: we have this President whose biggest brand identifying characteristic is “The Negotiator.”
[3:16] And because our President is the most famous negotiator, we’re watching what he does through those frames. We see him negotiating with China, negotiating a trade deal, negotiating with North Korea, and he is negotiating with Iran. Things will probably get a little hotter over there. So our minds are tuned to it, but we’re also learning as we go. We’re watching the way President Trump is literally training us about how to think of things as negotiations: what is your first demand, what is your visual persuasion, where do you make them think? Is it best to say no? Are you using optimism? Are you making people feel aspirational? Are you making a huge contrast between what they could have and what they would have? All of these techniques you’re watching the President model and demonstrate.
[4:19] I believe it’s having this effect on everybody else. We’re all getting smarter. We’re all learning a skill just by watching it being practiced at the highest level. One of the things that always struck me about the African-American community in modern America—modern America meaning right now—is that they have given up all of their leverage. I don’t know that it was intentional; maybe it was a historical drift. But if you think about it, the only leverage in this sort of Democratic-Republic kind of system is that you will change your vote from this side to this side if you’re not getting what you want from that side. That’s the only leverage you have. So to the extent that the black vote is sort of locked down on the Democratic side, it gives African-American voters no power.
[5:24] It gives African-American voters no power because their vote is automatic. There’s no leverage. They’re not really saying, “I’m going to vote for the Republicans if you don’t give me what I want.” Kanye West—and before that, Candace Owens—are two voices that are not really the first people to be saying what they’re saying, but they’re the most effective. It’s always hard to say who’s the first person who comes up with any kind of an idea, but they are the most effective. And this idea is that it’s okay to think independently and look for good things from anybody. It’s okay to say, “You’re mostly okay, even if I don’t like these parts about you.” It’s okay to disagree with the people who seem to be on your team if you have a reason.
[6:25] He’s broken what I would call the “couch lock.” I don’t know if you’ve heard that term; it’s a stoner term. You smoke a bunch of marijuana, you can’t get off the couch, you’re just locked to this couch for a few more hours. I would say the African-American community have given up their leverage by being such a guaranteed Democratic vote. Kanye West just sort of stuck a big old key in the lock and went like this, and a lot of brains just went, “Wait a minute, we could vote for anybody we want.” As soon as the black community quite seriously says they will vote for whoever does the best job—like really, not just talk—they have all the power.
[7:27] They have all the power because everybody else is going to stay in their lane. Republicans are going to be Republicans, and Democrats are going to be Democrats. But the black vote is big enough that if any substantial part of them says, “I know those Republicans didn’t used to be a good deal, but what they’re offering right now… I already got a lot of good stuff, the laws are at least equal, there’s a lot that is going right and that’s probably not going to change, but at the moment Republicans have the stuff that I want. Why can’t I vote for them? I can get that stuff.” So there’s something very big happening: the ability to vote not based on one thing I don’t like, but because he’s got some good ideas. You can just take the stuff you like. It may be a very big deal, but we shall see.
[8:28] Now, I’ve heard people say that Kanye is doing it just for attention because he wants to sell albums. I would like to question that assumption. I don’t know that it would be a good idea to support Trump to sell albums. In fact, it feels like the very worst idea that I’ve ever heard. So those of you who were saying that probably he’s just trying to sell albums and what he’s doing is all part of his marketing deal—my view is that he’s way smarter than that. He would know quite certainly that a full embrace of Donald Trump—
[9:30] even without embracing his politics, and he hasn’t embraced his politics, he’s embraced the person, which is very clever—I don’t think it’s going to help him sell albums. I don’t see the Republicans buying a lot more Kanye music because if they liked him before, they would have been buying it already. And if they don’t like the music he produces, they’re not going to buy it just because they like his politics. So I don’t see him picking up anybody on the pro-Trump side who wasn’t already there. There must be plenty of pro-Trump customers who were already buying his music; it had nothing to do with politics, it was just they liked his music. I will confess one of the few albums that I have purchased was Kanye’s and it was awesome.
[10:32] So I don’t think it helps him marketing-wise, and I think he would know that. It seems to me that whatever Kanye is doing makes perfect sense. Now, just before we got on, I saw a tweet that said “decentralize.” It was just one word: “decentralized.” And it was retweeted by Talib Kweli. Now, I don’t know what’s going on with “decentralized.” I’m guessing it either applies to the blockchain or it applies to the fact that power is so conspicuously moving onto the internet. You’re watching the people come alive a little bit. You’re watching the ideas of what used to be the levers of power watching that fall away a little bit.
[11:33] “Decentralized” might be just one word that describes everything that’s happening right now this week. On the internet, power is now sort of decentralized. I don’t know that that’s what he means, but I think it’s fun. It’s all very smart.
[12:35] I’m not going to say that Kanye has decided to run for president, and I’m not going to say that I would support him if he did or his policies would be good. We don’t know any of that. But if you just judge what he’s doing today, it’s really good. Kanye has not only attracted an enormous amount of attention, but he’s focused on what was an insanely productive avenue that was completely unserved, which is the “reasonable person.” As weird as it sounds, the space in the political conversation for a reasonable person was completely empty.
[13:35] It was completely empty and he saw it and he said, “Well, this would be useful. Let’s see where the reasonable middle gets us. Let’s see what happens when we stop being mean to each other and just try to be helpful.” Now, I hope that’s his thought process. There’s no way to know what’s in his mind, but it looks like he just saw this opportunity to do something that would be a personal risk. This is a personal risk. There’s skin in the game here. Kanye put his neck on the line to get this point across. I believe it because I don’t see another reason that makes sense. The idea that Kanye wants to sell albums doesn’t make sense. I don’t think it’s going to help him sell. But wanting to make the world a better place in this particular way—in a way that he could do because he had the power, had the opportunity, saw the opening, and took it—that’s what it looks like happened.
[14:38] And for that, my God, good job. I don’t know how to get rid of the racists commenting on here. Dragon energy. When in the tweet Kanye uses the phrase “dragon energy,” I feel like I know what that means. It’s just another way to say “warrior.” It’s an ambition, a “can’t stop me” sort of power reference. But notice how visual it is. “Dragon.” The best persuaders are visual. What has Kanye given us today? A picture of a Make America Great Again hat, which is a visual, and then he refers to dragon energy. You see the dragon, right?
[15:39] They’re very visual. These are the tells that his talent for persuasion is not an accident. He’s really, really good at this stuff. You want dragon energy? Well, it seems to me that if there isn’t already a dragon energy drink, there will be soon. Unfortunately, it will remind people of Charlie Sheen and “tiger blood.” But I think the way Kanye did it was smarter because rather than saying it was something about himself—if Kanye had said “I have dragon energy,”
[16:41] and maybe he has at one point, but if he had said it in the tweet, people would say, “Well, that’s a funny thing to say about yourself.” But when you say that two people have dragon energy, it really does change it. It softens it because you’re not really talking about yourself; you’re talking about an analogy that applies to you and another person. Suddenly it becomes a little less narcissistic than it would if you were just talking about yourself. Slightly less. Maybe it’s a Game of Thrones thing. Yeah, maybe it is. I don’t know if Kanye is helping Trump. I don’t see that as the direct effect; that might be an outcome. I see Kanye helping people. My take on this is that if you’re thinking Kanye is all about helping Trump, I’m not really seeing that.
[17:44] I accept that Trump is a person and he’s part of this great experiment called the United States, but this feels like it’s directed at the public. It doesn’t feel like it’s directed at Trump. He would just be one of the many who could come out better if free-thinking is allowed, which is the message here. Maybe they should redesign the Make America Great Again hat. That’s a funny idea. It’s not a bad idea. I’ll talk to all of you later.