By the end of the 2020 presidential election, Kanye West managed to pull 60,000 votes with only four months of campaigning under his belt. These votes were stolen from real politicians just as they were stolen in 2016 by Donald Trump 一 with his only qualification being the fact that he was a celebrity. In like fashion, Kanye West ran for president on the grounds that he is a household name and therefore holds some influence over the general public. If America continues to enable fanatical celebrities such as Kanye West to run for president without any test for real qualifications, the nation will suffer greatly and become the laughing stock of the world.
While it is a positive thing that celebrities have been more vocal with their platforms on political issues, they should still be barred from running for office if they have no credentials that would make them fit for politics. The presidency should not be something millionaires get to check off their bucket list just because they have the means to campaign. Celebrities like Kanye West do not quite understand the weight of the position they carelessly run for. After all, the president is in charge of running a nation that is increasingly more diverse with millions of communities having different needs, and these are issues that celebrities will never completely understand without extensive political knowledge. Above all, stealing government positions from individuals who devote their lives to politics would be robbing the American people of strong leadership.
Kanye West and other celebrities with the same temperament have followers who revere them as gods and therefore believe they have the makings of a strong president. However, while these public figures boast change and promise progress with flashy campaign theatrics, they are all bark and no bite. For instance, during his campaign, Kanye West spoon-fed impressionable voters the promise that he would fight for the everyday person and address important issues, but at the end of the day, he is still a millionaire who will never experience the struggles of the working class American.
Likewise, people make the mistake of electing celebrities into office thinking that it will somehow be different than past administrations, but this is how narcissists like Donald Trump get elected into office. In fact, Kanye West never even voted until 2020, and he also did not follow protocol by recording himself, so it would be ridiculous for Americans to put all of their trust into someone who has cared so little about the political process until it pertained to him. These celebrities only care about image and putting on a show but are otherwise unprepared to take on the real responsibility of addressing important issues, as we have seen during the Trump administration.
Of course, we cannot completely strip people of the right to run for office, but for the integrity of American politics, we need to at least implement a vetting process in order to keep people from running on unsubstantiated grounds. Donald Trump’s undeserved victory in 2016 and Kanye West’s repeated threats to run for president are evidence enough that a vetting process is extremely necessary. There should be extensive background checks for candidates in order to see if they have any experience in addressing important issues going on in American politics, such as wealth inequality, international affairs or climate change. Besides, with a vetting process in place, we can look out for America’s best interests so that we do not vote a lunatic into office once again. Additionally, it will prevent people like Kanye West, who have never-ending amounts of wealth, from campaigning over and over again if they do not reach the criteria of said vetting process.
If there were stronger parameters required of celebrities to follow, we’d have more qualified candidates running for office. Some form of integrity would be brought back to the political process, and the country can move forward with stronger leadership instead of wasting time taking steps backward with someone unqualified. America deserves to have real politicians with the ability to make real changes instead of narcissistic celebrities who think they are the main character in their own movie and treat American politics like a Hollywood fantasy.
