Kanye West for president: Why not, America?

The last leg of Barack Obama's presidential tenure has plunged the United States of America in an uncertainty that is graver than any it has seen since 9/11. Look left or right, look at the Democrats or the Republicans, you don't see anyone worth his or her mop, suit, accent or swag. Who will you pick among Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden from the Democrats, and among Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and a slew of others incendiary public personalities from the petro-dollar rich Republican camp? The choice is literally, nil.

But the "Yeezus" might have spoken to break the lull. If best-selling black American rapper and 21-time Grammy winner, Kanye West, the king of American music industry, and the husband of the one and only Kim Kardashian, has thrown his hat in the presidential ring, then is it a good thing or a bad thing? Okay, West isn't exactly running for president now, so no "West Winging" of the White House in 2016 itself. But at this year's MTV Video Music Awards, where he became the recepient of the prestigious Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award, West did roll up a little something of a surprise when he screamed into the microphone, "I have decided in 2020 to run for president".     

It might have been a joke; it probably was one. But doesn't that get you thinking? If the best that the current crop of presidential aspirants can offer is Donald Trump, whose credential is just about being a highly successful real estate tycoon with a penchant for fashionable misogyny, racist uncouthness and general discursive indisposition, then why should 2020 not see a Kim Kardashian as the first lady? Is there anything that Trump can rightfully claim that cannot be, and amply so, reproduced by West, and that too with the accompanying bling bash?

Or, is it that American politics has sunk to an alarming level of boringness? Is it that the Democrats have little to choose but from spent forces such as Hillary Clinton, a known Iraq War supporter, or Joe Biden, whose two terms as vice president has overfamiliarised him before the eyes of his fellow Americans. Bernie Sanders is brilliant and strong on gun control, but somehow, he inspires little faith in an America deeply torn between shooting tragedies on one hand and white police atrocity on the other hand. Donald Trump is more in the news for making outrageous statements that add a dash of spice to the bland preparation that is American politics now. Jeb Bush might as well be an Egyptian mummy: other than his (in)famous surname, there's little meat in this old turkey.

In other words, after Barack Obama's rockstar rise and reign, his intellectual flamboyance and casual cool, his iconic first family of achievers from an African American descent, his historic achievements on Cuba, Iran, nabbing Osama bin Laden, Obamacare, and US supreme court's dream judgment on gay marriage during his tenure, the expectations are sky high from the next president of the United States of America. There's just so much Obama has quietly packed into his not-yet-eight-years of playing the top banana in the shock department that is US government. Not a single aspirant comes even close to matching the current president in the depth and breadth of accomplishments, impacting a large demographic, channeling political history to new shores of unexpected peace.

West, compared to Obama, is a laughable, almost cartoonish, character. He sure calls the shots in music industry, has tie-ups with all the biggest fashion labels, and, along with his mostly skimpily clad wife, is one half of a duo that can be neatly called the king and queen of American entertainment industry. [Some may say the titles belong to Jay-Z and Beyonce, rightfully so, but the jury is out.] Slightly low brow but high on cash, West is the dream merchant of the new America that realises itself through music and dance talent hunts, enabled by an obsession with flashy personal technology. This is the febrile America of selfies, celebrity mania, gangsta cool with a noir-ish touch to everyday life, far removed from the sedate conversations on taxes and social security that Democrats mostly and earnestly engage in, or from the frenzied, unsympathetic dialogue of the deaf that goes in the corridors of the ultra American right.  

That America may one day need to fall back on Kanye West is both a deep tragedy and a fascinating comedy of democratic opportunities. But it would have all begun with a joke.