Kanye West is not backing off of this Hitler stuff come hell or high water, and over the weekend he doubled down on his troubling antisemitic rhetoric during an interview with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, alongside noted white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Only the best for our Ye!
However, McInnes, who stepped back from the alt-right organization in 2017, later claimed that he was actually trying to talk the 45-year-old rapper “off the ledge, as far as Nazi stuff goes,” which is really saying something. But if getting lucrative sponsorship deals yanked left and right hasn’t managed to do the trick, then it seemed unlikely that McInnes would have much luck — which in fact turned out to be the case.
“I love everyone, that is what leaning into God is, and that’s the only way we cure the world, is by loving,” said a mask-wearing Ye, in a clip of the interview that began making the rounds on Tuesday. “As far as setting up the rules of the country, this is a Christian country. And the rules of the country will be based on the Bible. We’re going to realign the Constitution with the Bible and update it. And we’re in the process of doing that right now.”
The remarks came at the tail end of the interview, which a baffled McInnes wasn’t sure what to make of, along with the rest of us. “You love Jews, but you’re canceled for antisemitism because you also love Hitler, but you love everyone equally,” he attempted to sum up. “Good guys and bad guys.”
“Yeah, Jewish people can’t tell me who I can love and who I can’t love,” Ye continued. “You can’t say — you can’t force your pain on everyone else. Jewish people, forgive Hitler today. Let it go. Let it go. And stop trying to force it on other people. Good night.”
Well, aside from that being just about the worst idea for a Frozen reboot ever, perhaps West could stand to educate himself on why Jewish people can’t “let it go.” Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler oversaw the heinous murder of approximately six million European Jews and an additional five million prisoners of war, including Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals. The violence didn’t end with World War II, either, and antisemitic attacks are currently on the rise.
After the interview, McInnes — who again, literally founded the Proud Boys — tried again to make sense of it all.
“The normal takeaway is, my antisemitism intervention didn’t work, but I don’t think he’s antisemitic, per se,” McInnes suggested. “I mean, I don’t even know how much he likes Hitler. Does he mean he likes him like he likes Darth Vader?”
Perhaps that’s giving Ye more credit and grace than he deserves, but honestly, it’s probably also not all that far from the truth.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents reached an “all-time high” in 2021, and 2022 is on a similar track. This includes assault, harassment, and vandalism. For more information on the dangers of antisemitic rhetoric and what you can do to stop it, see the American Jewish Committee’s Call to Action Against Antisemitism in America.