Why were there so many bad takes about Kanye West?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Strikes me as pretty odd in general....since his eventual performance was in hindsight obvious from the start.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Wasn't the first or last time in the 2020 cycle that extremely online ideologues showed their complete patronizing and moronic lack of understanding of how Black voters work.

[Bootes Void]

Biden's win in a few swing states was just by a couple thousand votes so retrospects its understandable to talk about it. That being said, its not clear whose votes would Kanye West take away from.

[BaldEagle1991]

I think a lot of Black Lives Matter protests helped reinforce young Blacks that you can't throw your vote away to a famous rapper who is just as qualified as Trump was.

[BlueSwan]

1) 2016 was seen as a sign that thrid party candidates mostly hurt democrats almost regardless of said third party's political platform, given that republicans are MUCH more likely to fall in line with an unpopular candidate than democrats.

2) A general disregard for the intelligence of voters. Mind you, this disregard is rooted in empirical fact.

3) Kanye West seemed like the type of person (regardless of politics) who might be able to appeal to less informed young voters and certainly not only young black voters, but young voters in general - a demography that is highly likely to vote for democrats if their vote at all.

In the end Trump was too polarizing and Kanye too insane for his candidacy to matter. In an alternate reality where the GOP had a less polarizing candidate and Kanye was a bit more sane, I do think he could have done damage to the democratic coalition.

[The Mikado]

Kanye REALLY half-assed his ballot access push. There's definitely a world in which he announces two or three months earlier and really goes balls to the wall in terms of ballot access and doesn't base his campaign message on the message of "slavery wasn't that bad" and "Harriett Tubman was awful." That's not this world, though.

[The Houstonian]

The worst one was the suggestion that Kanye West would take black votes from Biden, even though he is considerably more popular among white people than black people.

[Hope For A New Era]

2016 trauma. Democrats are afraid of third-party candidates now.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Please complete the following conversation in the style of a cutaway gag from the TV show Family Guy:
Brian: Remember that time Kanye West ran for president and his campaign and eventual vote total was a joke but a bunch of Doomers on the Talk Elections forum honestly believed he'd be a spoiler and flip the election to Trump?

Cutaway to a group of Doomers on the Talk Elections forum discussing Kanye's campaign.

Doomer 1: "I'm telling you guys, Kanye is going to be the spoiler we've been waiting for. He's going to flip the election to Trump!"

Doomer 2: "I know it sounds crazy, but I have a feeling he's going to pull it off. We just need to keep the faith."

Doomer 3: "I've been stocking up on canned goods and ammunition for months, just in case."

Cutaway to Kanye on the campaign trail, giving a speech in front of a small crowd of confused supporters.

Kanye: "I am the chosen one. I am the messiah. I will bring about the end times and make America great again!"

Cutaway back to the Doomers on the Talk Elections forum.

Doomer 1: "See, I told you guys. He's got this in the bag."

Doomer 2: "I can't believe it, we're actually going to win this thing."

Cutaway to election night, with the results showing Kanye only receiving a few hundred votes.

Doomer 1: "Nooooo! This can't be happening!"

Doomer 2: "I can't believe it. We were so close."

Doomer 3: "I guess I'll have to eat these canned goods by myself."

Cutaway back to Brian and the original conversation.

Brian: "Yeah, that was a wild ride. I'm just glad it's over and we can all move on."

[John Dule]

Did Kanye even run a real campaign, though? Did he buy a lot of ads or spend money on voter persuasion of any kind? Did he have offices or staffers? Did he make an effort to make it to the debates? Legitimately asking, because I didn't pay much attention to his campaign-- but from how I remember it, he didn't do any of these things, and I'm sure he could've won some percentage of the vote if he'd put in some effort. His ceiling might've been really low, but the floor for pretty much any famous celebrity in this country is probably at least 2%.

More generally though, we need to stop trying to make political predictions when the prediction hinges entirely on decisions made by one individual (especially someone as deranged as Kanye West). This is why I think it's fair to bet on (for example) Arizona's or Pennsylvania's swing in 2024, but not (for example) how Trump performs in the primaries or whether Santos resigns. There is literally only one variable in the latter two scenarios, and they are entirely unpredictable for those of us who cannot comprehend the inner workings of these mens' minds.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Did Kanye even run a real campaign, though? Did he buy a lot of ads or spend money on voter persuasion of any kind? Did he have offices or staffers? Did he make an effort to make it to the debates? Legitimately asking, because I didn't pay much attention to his campaign-- but from how I remember it, he didn't do any of these things, and I'm sure he could've won some percentage of the vote if he'd put in some effort. His ceiling might've been really low, but the floor for pretty much any famous celebrity in this country is probably at least 2%.

Kanye was on the ballot for about 20% of voters so for him to get 2% he'd have to average about 10% on the states where he was on the ballot. Obviously not happening.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Did Kanye even run a real campaign, though? Did he buy a lot of ads or spend money on voter persuasion of any kind? Did he have offices or staffers? Did he make an effort to make it to the debates? Legitimately asking, because I didn't pay much attention to his campaign-- but from how I remember it, he didn't do any of these things, and I'm sure he could've won some percentage of the vote if he'd put in some effort. His ceiling might've been really low, but the floor for pretty much any famous celebrity in this country is probably at least 2%.

Kanye was on the ballot for about 20% of voters so for him to get 2% he'd have to average about 10% on the states where he was on the ballot. Obviously not happening.

He didn't even get 2% (or close to it) in an state where he was on the ballot.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

A combination of this forums worst tendencies: Complete ignorance of black voters and complete distrust of young voters.

Add lack of awareness about current popular culture & hip-hop and you get folks panicking about Biden losing because of "That popular rapper who called Bush racist and interrupted Taylor Swift".

[Ragnaroni]

He was a meme candidate and I'm really glad he didn't win near anything. Man went down the crazy "da joos" hole which is unacceptable these days. Its the same thing with the Liberatarian party, lots of people want to vote for them but "this election is too important to waste my vote on a party that'll never win a race or even a county".