"He Can't Win" - 2016 Timeline

[Wells]

A lot of people wonder whether or not a Democratic version of Trump would have been successful. The answer is. . . I don't know.

So let's just do a timeline. (My other 2016 timeline will still go on.) So, before we begin, who should be the Democratic Trump? Trump himself or somebody else? Who's the best Democratic Trump?

[/]

Ed Rendell, obv.

[MadmanMotley]

Trump himself.

[hurricanehink]

Kanye West

[Slow Learner]

Trump himself.

[Wells]

I've decided to go with Kanye West for a few reasons. 1) He is like Trump - a major public figure with a big ego, often laughed at. 2) He has been politically active before, like Trump. (George Bush doesn't care about black people.) 3) For the purposes of the plot.

[LLR]

Welp, looks like I'm voting third party.

[Wells]

(assume everything else plays out the same, except Republicans are without Trump)

Kanye West announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015 in Los Angeles to a flurry of media coverage. His slogan was "Make America Great Again." (He also considered It's really easy, vote for Yeezy, but decided to just put it on shirts.) Critics decried that he wasn't a real candidate, he was a clown, his candidacy must be a joke, a know-nothing, artists forbade him from using their music at his rallies (he was only playing his own music, with some Beyonce, anyway). However, one newspaper, The New York Times, declared that he was "important." They would soon prove to be right.

In his announcement speech, Kanye West referred to Mexicans as "our friends," and called for completely open borders. His reasoning was that the "rich, white corporate class" didn't want the United States to have open borders, which is why we didn't, and they must be wrong. (There were also many factual inaccuracies in his speech, but they were glossed over in favor of controversy.) This was a major controversy, with Republicans and Democrats alike calling it ridiculous, wrong, and even racist. Bernie Sanders was the only Democrat to concede that West was right on "some things."

However, the next day, the tables turned. The National Review, a conservative magazine, published a satirical article calling Kanye West a "witless ape." Backlash began immediately. Democrats and a few moderates slammed the National Review for a "racist" headline. Kanye West joined in on Twitter, saying "This is the racism I have been fighting all my life. Vote Yeezus." The National Review deleted the article, but not before the narrative had turned from an anti-West one to a pro-West one. Many would begin to seriously consider voting for him. Which is just what the National Review wanted.

[Wells]

Kanye West began the search for a running mate immediately after he began. His shortlist (which he wrote without any of his advisors advising him) included such names as Beyonce, Oprah Winfrey, and Kendrick Lamar. He resolved to himself that no white person would be his running mate. He was only able to reach Lamar, who said that he would be open to it if West did win the nomination. After West hung up, Lamar shook his head and said to himself, "Damn, that is one crazy n-. He can't win."

West received criticism for hiring actors to attend and applaud his announcement speech. (What tipped off the press was that they were all black.) West defended his decision, saying, "The corporatists who woulda otherwise attended my speech wouldn't've understanded what I was tryna to say to y'all. You just have to look at all the media reaction to see their reaction." He spent another ten minutes talking about it, but that's all I want to type.

After Kanye West was done calling paid actors part off his genius, a mass shooting occurred at a  historic black church in Charleston. As soon as he heard about it, he told his top campaign aide (Kim Kardashian's publicist who I don't know nor want to know the name of) "We need to go there right now." He made a speech at six in the morning in front of the grieving friends and families of the nine victims. In the speech, he called it a hate crime and blamed a "racist system" for letting it happen. According to reports, he convinced everybody in the room to vote for him. Despite this, the media attacked him for senselessly capitalizing on a tragedy and called his response "tone-deaf".

At home, many African-American and Hispanic primary voters bristled at the media. They agreed with what West had said. Why should they listen to CNN and FOX? They retreated to Reddit, MSNBC, and other liberal areas of the Internet and TV where their views were backed up. These low-profile accounts, subreddits, radio stations, and TV channels began to grow in audience.

[Present]

I beg for some generic Republican to save this nation from this abomination of nature called stupid voters... Hey, what if West chose Trump or DWS to be his running mate?

[Devout Centrist]

Is he running for the Democratic nomination? If so, it should be 2015.

[Wells]

West complained about media bias on Twitter and continued to make storms of coverage. He also called for the women on the 10 dollar to be Beyonce and called Brian Williams the "personification of white privilege". But no matter what he did, many inexplicably found defenders online. Some pointed out all the great things Beyonce had done and disparaged all other women brought up. They said that if Williams was black, he would have been exposed as a liar in 2005, not 2015. They went through hoops to defend their candidate.

This horrified the Democratic establishment. There was no way West had this big of a following, right? Yet their internals in South Carolina on June 17-18 showed something odd.

West 30%
Clinton 29%
Sanders 12%
Those other people 5%
Undecided 24%

West had taken Clinton's lead and turned the race into a three-way (Clinton still had the lead in IA and Sanders had taken NH with West added). Clinton's southern firewall had turned on her - it would now benefit West. They hoped their internals were wrong and decided to wait until some commercial polls came out. It would only be a few more days until they were proven wrong. Or right.

On Friday morning, West was still in Charleston talking about racism every few minutes when he walked past the South Carolina State House. He stopped. He looked at the flag. It was a Confederate Flag. He walked up to the flag pole, pointed up at the flag, and said, "This is racist." He left the city on his private jet one hour later.

West's statement on the confederate flag went viral and soon it was the latest in a series of incidents involving West to receive astounding amounts of coverage. Within a few hours, kanye West was more popular the mass shooting which had just happened.

Behind the scenes, West was revelling in his constant coverage. What really ticked him off was that it seemed they couldn't say anything nice about him. He tweeted about how "awfully biased" MSNBC was (despite the fact that he knew they were the most friendly to him) and encouraged people to stop watching them. MSNBC executives laughed off the tweet. There was no way they would get any drop in their ratings. After all, they were kinder to him than, say, Fox. They had no need to be worried. And even if they were a bit unfair to him, it didn't matter because he can't win.

[Wells]

Kanye West continued to stir controversy when he was asked in an interview for Newsweek his position on gun control. In his answer he managed to call every Republican candidate, including Ben Carson (especially Ben Carson), racist. What caused outrage was how he seemed to shy away from traditional Democratic gun control policies (calling them racist) and even advocated for more gun ownership. When asked what this meant about Charleston, West said, "Charleston was a mass shooting, but it's clear that gun control wouldn't have solved it. If we had politicians that actually cared, and, you know, weren't white, then it would be solved."

This statement caused more controversy, and the Democratic establishment was horrified. Wasserman Schultz called a secret meeting of 50 Democratic insiders (including Bill Clinton) and made them all pledge never to endorse West and to encourage other Democrats to do the same. Meanwhile the DNC worked on a plan to elevate Clinton's status. They decided that in order to do that, she would need to win the debates. So, they orchestrated a careful plan which, if they executed correctly, would restore Clinton as a solid front runner by Iowa and New Hampshire. That is, if no other unpredictable event occurred.

Meanwhile, the first two polls taken completely after West joined the race were released. First came an NBC/WSJ national poll:

Clinton 41%
West 34%
Sanders 15%
Those other guys 4%
Undecided 6%

Then a Bloomberg poll of Iowa and New Hampshire:

IA
Clinton 46%
Sanders 24%
West 4%
Those other guys 2%
Undecided 24%

NH
Clinton 42%
Sanders 24%
West 14%
Those other guys 3%
Undecided 17%

DWS breathed a sigh of relief. But West hadn't finished surging.

[hurricanehink]

Loving this so far! So glad you went with Kanye.

[anthonyjg]

Great timeline! I would hope that Bernie would run a third party bid in a Kanye v. Generic Republican general election.

[Wells]

The media eventually grew tired of West calling everything racist and went back to calling the Confederate flag racist themselves. Not even a video posted on KanyeWestVEVO of him burning the Confederate flag got much attention from them, even if it went viral online.

West decided to call on all white people to apologize for slavery (and pay reparations), but that got very little attention, too. His campaign manager decided to talk to him about a winning strategy. He said blaming all white people for black people's problems would hurt him with a very large demographic and didn't make much sense anyway. West accused him of "stifling my genius" and stormed out of the room.

West suddenly decided to head to Arizona, where in Maricopa County the Sheriff was sending armed volunteers to protect black churches after the Charleston shooting. West was having none of it. Cancelling a concert-rally (yes, he's giving a speech in between rap verses) in Des Moines, he went to Maricopa County to give a speech (without the rap verses) in which he called Sheriff Arpaio (and Glenn Beck) racist (with examples of Arpaio's office racially profiling blacks), and saying that, "We can defend ourselves from racism. . . Arpaio says you can't do it alone. You need help from the strong white people, that's what he's saying." This got the media's attention. And he was back in the headlines.

[Wells]

The media storm that had followed West's campaign finally decided to die down, and West celebrated by calling Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin racist on Twitter. He gave a concert-rally in Baltimore in memory of Freddie Gray in which he called Jim Webb racist. But his campaign was worried about one thing - and that was his music. Kanye West's music had been critically acclaimed, but that didn't stop them from worrying more controversial lines wouldn't surface. They were all easily accessible and just waiting to become an issue. So West's top campaign manager began coordinating a response that would be executed if West's music did eventually become an issue. He also arranged a meeting with West about what music he should record and release while running for president.

West held another concert-rally in Montgomery, Alabama to celebrate their taking down of the confederate flag. This rally as the first example of a protester at one of West's rallies. (The protester was allegedly found to be a KKK member, according to Daily Kos.) The protester held a sign that held a picture of the Confederate flag and was quickly escorted out by security, though a few members of audience booed him as he was escorted past them. Once the crally (as he called them since they were concert-ralles, others called it that because they were crazy-rallies) was over, he expressed support for Obamacare on Twitter, shocking many who thought he would call it racist. He did call Antonin Scalia and Ted Nugent racist, though.

Kanye West finally arrived in Des Moines, where he held a crally in which he announced "I'm going to win Iowa," attacked Clinton on her emails, and performed FourFiveSeconds with Rihanna. (It still remained unclear whether Rihanna supported him or not.) He proceeded to denounce terrorism and in a TV interview announced "ISIS would be destroyed" if he was president, though he didn't say how. His campaign manager finally met with him about his music, but it resulted in West saying "I'll do whatever I ****ing want" and storming away. His campaign released a general statement supporting the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling. West called Scalia and Jindal homophobic on Twitter to back that up.

West banned Breitbart employees from his properties and crallies (because they were. . . you know). This action was criticized by mainstream press, but more liberal outlets praised his decision because it showed there was a candidate who could finally stand up to the "far-right blogosphere". He also went on a Twitter rant about Jim Inhofe, calling him "homophobic," an "idiot," and racist. Afterwards, West received his first major endorsement from Amy Schumer.

Week of 6/27 polls

Fox News National Poll
Clinton 51%
Sanders 14%
West 11%
Biden 11%
Those other guys 7%
Undecided 6%

YouGov National
Clinton 20%
Sanders 15%
Biden 13%
West 10%
Those other guys 9%
Undecided 33%

[Wells]

Kanye West defended gay marriage in a concert-rally, calling Republicans "behind the times". But gay marriage would soon prove to be the least of his priorities. His song "All Day" had just went gold, and the National Review looked at what was in the lyrics. They published an article about it. Their specific argument was that it used the n word 38 times, so it was hypocritical of West to talk about racism. West fired back on Twitter, touting the success of the song. The controversy quickly flared up but died just as quickly.

Amid speculation that Biden could run, West in one of his rallies decided the best course of action was to attack Biden on something. Since his speeches were spontaneous outbursts of political talk in between a few rap verses, he said the first thing that popped into his mind. "Joe Biden - they say he's going to run, on the TV there, they said, on CNN, they said he would run. But he's too old. He's gonna be too old to do anything as president." His campaign manager almost screamed. DWS was ecstatic because this would obviously be campaign ending. But West wasn't done. "And Clinton and. . . that - that Jewish guy, they're too old, too. They might die in office." West's remarks were panned everywhere. Nobody had anything nice to say about them. For about an hour. Then some analysts appearing on TV said he had a point. His campaign spokeswoman said, "He has a point. Clinton is 68. She's had health issues before. Sanders and Biden are in their 70s. The presidency is a very stressful job. There is a lot of work to be done. Can they do it?" They also maintained that West forgot who Sanders was (except for his Jewishness), which explained "that Jewish guy".

[Maxwell]

Please let it be that it's Kanye vs. Jeb. That would be a genuinely hilarious election!

[Wells]

Quick question before this next update: Jeb Bush is a good Republican Clinton, but what about Colin Powell? Thoughts?

MSNBC noticed something odd. For the past week, their ratings had been dropping. The highest rated shows were now dropping below 5 million views. Their website had suffered a 2/3's drop in pageviews. (They were moving to HuffPo, Dailykos, and Buzzfeed, all outspoken defenders of West.) They crunched the numbers and realized that the numbers had collapsed on the same day West encouraged people not to watch them. Philip T. Griffin, the president of MSNBC, decided to meet with Tracy Nguyen (West's campaign manager), Jill Fritzo, and Kanye himself would appear over Skype. They eventually agreed that MSNBC and other NBC channels would be a lot kinder to West. A memo was sent to other ranking leaders in MSNBC. West celebrated by praising Obama on Twitter.

Kanye West had few supporters, but they were growing in number quickly and were very vocal about their support. A video went viral in which a West supporter shouts obscenities at a police officer for being a cop. The West campaign didn't comment.

Upon new releases of Hillary's emails, the West campaign seized on anything that might sink Hillary. In one of his rallies, West labeled her as "totally incompetent," "weak," "liar," and most of all "crooked." He also called gerrymandering racist. West had accused Ohio, North Carolina, and Iowa of gerrymandering. He promised to fix those states if president. These statements gained some coverage, the Clinton comments mainly among conservatives and the gerrymandering comments among liberals.

West's record label, Def Jam, were worried about what West's controversia personality could do to them. So they dropped West from their label. West, angry about that, went on a Twitter rant and the Rachel Maddow Show, accused Def Jam of being unfair. Many other outfits and brands associated with West began to contemplate cutting ties, and a few more did. West said on Twitter that he "hated them all." Tracy Nguyen made him delete that tweet. She told him that he needed to reign himself in more. "Please calm down," she said. "I'm f-ing fine, Treezy," he yelled at her before storming away. Trace changed his Twitter password and put Fritzo in charge of it to keep their campaign out of trouble.

When Jim Webb announced his campaign, Fritzo listened to what West had to say about him and put his thoughts onto Twitter, only in a more civil way. West still got the chance to say what he wanted in his next rally, though. Webb wasn't pleased, and urged Democrats that he would be the "perfect antidote" to West. West found the sticky note with the Twitter password and shot back. Tracy had her work cut out fr her for another day.

All this coverage of Kanye West distracted from Bernie Sanders, who was growing, albeit at a slower rate than he could have. Fritzo recognized that Sanders could be successful in taking down Clinton and delivering the nomination to Bernie Sanders. They just had to play their cards right. She started by tweeting on West's account that the primary would be favorable to Clinton, disenfranchising Sanders and West. She made sure to mention Sanders. West saw this tweet and realized that this is a good point, but he saw no need to mention Sanders. He brought it up in his next few rallies.

Week of 7/4 polls

Iowa - We Ask America
Clinton 56%
Sanders 19%
West 7%
Those other guys 9%
Undecided 8%

South Carolina - Gravis
Clinton 41%
West 34%
Biden 6%
Sanders 5%
Those other guys 9%

National - YouGov
Clinton 39%
Sanders 16%
Biden 11%
West 11%
Those other guys 13%
Undecided 10%

National - CNN/ORC
Clinton 46%
Biden 16%
Sanders 13%
West 12%
Those other guys 7%
Undecided 6%

[Present]

Quick question before this next update: Jeb Bush is a good Republican Clinton, but what about Colin Powell? Thoughts?

Why not Chris Christie? He's seen as a moderate and has his own controversies (Bridgegate).

[Enduro]

Quick question before this next update: Jeb Bush is a good Republican Clinton, but what about Colin Powell? Thoughts?

Why not Chris Christie? He's seen as a moderate and has his own controversies (Bridgegate).

How about you have him run against another celebrity, but a likable guy who has very little controversies, but enough to be dissed. Someone who would refrain from speaking negatively, like Tim Tebow.

[Wells]

Fast forwarding a bit after this hiatus.

The first Democratic debate was on October 13, 2015. The race leading up to the debate as tight, but the polling average used for the stage organization showed West leading Clinton by 3 and Sanders by 14 at 29%. He took center stage in front of a viewing audience of 14.8 million who watched the debate.

The very first question was directed at Kanye West by moderator Dana Bash. She asked him about his questionable song lyrics with regards to women. He responded by saying that he loved women very much and that Bash should shut up. Fifteen minutes later, he called Hillary a bitch when she brought up his gaffe about slavery from a month earlier. When Sanders gave his line about being sick and tired of Clinton's emails, West said Sanders was a plant of the establishment and Clinton's scandal was very real and he was the real outsider.

Pundits said West overwhelmingly lost the debate due to his inability to control himself. Clinton was labelled the winner by most, though the online polls said Sanders was the winner.

[Kingpoleon]

Christie is the perfect Republican Clinton.

[Wells]

Thankfully, voters did actually think Clinton won the debate. No matter how many times West called these polls junk or fake or rigged on Twitter, by October 23, the polling average showed Clinton with a small lead. West stayed away from controversy, letting Republicans take the spotlight. The Republican field had seemed stable at first, but with sixteen candidates surprises were around every corner. Carson, casting himself as an outsider was now a clear frontrunner with Bush a small ways behind him and the other fifteen all struggling for the spotlight.

West scoffed at Carson. He called him a phony, an Uncle Tom, an "OK doctor" in his speeches. When it came out that Carson had been lying about certain details from his past, he simply said, "I was right." The other Democratic candidates all tried to stay above what Sanders referred to in an August rally as the "clown car." But West had something to say about everything. And the media was all too happy to cover it.

His crowd sizes were rivalling every other candidate, except maybe Sanders. About once a week, Sanders or West made headlines with a huge crowd, breaking records again and again. During the week of October 25, West had the record with 13,400, and he wasn't going to let anybody forget it. The momentum of these new insurgent candidates worried the Clinton campaign.

And West wouldn't stop releasing music. No matter how many times his Nguyen told him to stop. This caused a controversy due to many of the lyrics in Kanye's songs, but the publicity his campaign gave him made it so that he made lots of money off them.

West went on a few rants about Bill de Blasio and money in politics which gained him some coverage and support.

Polls from the first four states

Iowa - Gravis
Clinton 37%
West 29%
Sanders 16%
O'Malley 3%
Undecided 15%

New Hampshire - YouGov
West 38%
Sanders 28%
Clinton 21%
O'Malley 2%
Undecided 11%

Nevada - ORC
West 38%
Clinton 35%
Sanders 21%
O'Malley 3%
Undecided 3%

South Carolina - Clemson
Clinton 25%
West 23%
Sanders 1%
O'Malley 1%
Undecided 50%