Confirming what everyone might have expected going into the ceremony, Kanye West was by far the best part of this year's VMAs. His near-sitcom-length acceptance speech was great for many reasons (not least of which was its clear, raw honesty in front of millions of people), but its craziest moment was almost certainly Kanye's off-handed declaration that he would run for president in 2020. As much as this clearly is not going to happen (there's too much other stuff Kanye would rather be doing), it's really not so implausible as other news outlets might have you believe, particularly given the history of celebrities in politics.
The obvious examples here are American celebrities who have made political careers out of their natural charisma, for both good and (largely) ill. Donald Trump's presidential bid is currently making life hell for both the Republican party and the country at large, but don't forget that, before he cooked up an answer, Ronald Reagan was a movie star.
The list of non-presidential aspirants is even bigger. Wrestler and Predator star Jesse "The Body" Ventura was governor of Minnesota. Arnold Schwarznegger ran California before going back to making Terminator sequels, and the state isn't that much more of a mess than it was when he started. Former SNL cast member Al Franken has been one of the better senators in recent memory. And those are just some of the more famous examples of recent people who have held political office. Here are some more:
- Fred Thompson, the dude from Law & Order, who was a senator for a while and briefly ran for president
- Clay Aiken (he lost, though)
- Wyclef Jean (he also lost)
- Sonny Bono (he won!)
Other countries, even ones with less powerful celebrity culture, have also elevated people from entertainment and sports backgrounds into positions of political power. There's a long history of soccer (sorry, football) players-turned politicians in Europe. Manny Pacquiao was one of last year's most absent members of the Philippine congress. An entire state of India has a history of being governed by Bollywood stars.
So... why, exactly, is a Kanye run seen as more ludicrous than all of the others, in a country where he may not be universally beloved, but certainly has a serious fan base and ideas about the world that are relatively easy to understand if you try for more than one second to understand then? Hmm... it's almost like we only allow certain types of people to present themselves as "serious" political figures even when they act like total clowns, while ignoring others who speak truth to power. (But that's none of our business.)
