Tucker: The left wants you to toe the party line
Rapper Kanye West confronts the left , publicly disagreeing with agenda.
By the fourth or fifth decade of Soviet communism, it was clear that the experiment wasn't really working. Almost nothing the Soviet state said was going to happen ever did. People were restless and they were frustrated, but they couldn't say so.
As the authorities lost their credibility, they became hysterical in the hunt for deviationists. Anyone who complained or asked questions was punished. Ultimately, the authorities decided that any disagreement with official orthodoxy wasn't simply forbidden, it was a form of mental illness. -- It had to be.
Soviet medical literature from the 1960s described schizophrenics as anyone who exhibited skepticism of the party line or displayed undue interest in "truth and justice." In other words, in the Soviet Union, anyone who refused to lie was by definition crazy.
All of which brings to mind the increasingly remarkable case of entertainer Kanye West. For a couple of decades, West enjoyed a pretty conventional, if highly successful, career as a producer and musician. Then in the last few years, something changed profoundly
West jumped into the business of social commentary but not in the way that many of his fans expected. In place of the usual industry-approved banalities about identity politics and sexual liberation, West started saying things like this.
Kanye West: My father is a Black Panther. My mother got arrested for the sit-ins at age six. They were fighting for us to have the right to our opinion, not the right to vote for whoever the white liberal said black people are supposed to vote for.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER
Wait a second. There's obviously some mistake here.
Kanye is a rapper and that means he is progressive -- he has to be. Those are the rules, as you know. And yet there he is, criticizing liberals.
So what's going on here? Well, there are only two possible explanations for this: Either Kanye West is kidding -- probable -- or he's nuts.
For a while, it wasn't clear which it was -- ironic or demented. But when West kept saying things like the following, it became obvious: He must be insane.
West: You have no idea. You'd be out here in LA and New York, and they'll have you all jacked up on Mountain Dew. People are connected to the idea of having their own land. People are connected to the idea of service to Christ. This is the Bible Belt. This is America.
Service to God? Yes, that's just the confirmation we needed. Get the net and fetch the Thorazine. This man is a danger to himself, and more ominously, he's a danger to our ossified neoliberal consensus, which we must never, ever, under any circumstances, challenge or question precisely because it is totally indefensible.
There's obviously some mistake here. Kanye is a rapper and that means he is progressive -- he has to be. Those are the rules, as you know.
Kanye West, ladies and gentlemen, is an imminent threat to the way we do things here. Discredit him before he keeps talking.
West: Wake up. Wake Up, Mr. West. Wake up, culture. Wake up -- everybody think they are so woke, but they are following the rules of what woke is supposed to be.
Wait a second. You mean woke politics means giving up the right to think for yourself? Yes, that's what Kanye West is saying or trying to say, as his former friends attempt to drown out his voice with patronizing fake concern. "This isn't the same Kanye we once knew. Clearly, he is struggling emotionally."
Maybe he is. Or maybe he has just decided to embrace human autonomy and live like an adult.
More from Opinion
West: When I was sitting in front of white people, and they thought, I wouldn't have thought you had liked Trump because of the racism. So you mean to tell me, I make every decision based off my color? The most racist thing a person could tell me is that I'm supposed to choose something based on my race.
All right, okay. It was funny until now. Now, he has gone too far, daring to declare independence from guilty self-righteous white liberals. Whoa!
And just in case that wasn't offensive enough -- though obviously it is -- he went farther and cut a gospel album, and then he attacked America's cancel culture.
West: Another thing is like this idea of like apologizing. What are we apologizing for? Saying George Bush don't care. Apologize for running on stage. We apologize for wearing the wrong color. I ain't apologizing for nothing -- now you're dealing with grandpa here. I've been through too much. I'm the founder of a $3 billion company. You think I need to listen to somebody online to tell me who I'm supposed to apologize for?
All right, you get it. We're not going to belabor the point here. If you're a woke liberal, we have tortured you enough.
But here's one last soundbite, just in case there was any question that Kanye O. West is clinically insane. Because you'd have to be completely off your nut -- barkingly crazy -- to, in the single sentence, both praise families and attack Big Tech.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
And yet that's exactly what Kanye West did.
West: Social media is doing more to hurt families than it is to help families and families are the key to health.
Well, clearly this man needs help.
Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Oct. 30, 2019.
Get the recap of top opinion commentary and original content throughout the week.