Kanye West cemented his status as one of the greatest musicians of our time when his recently released seventh album, “The Life of Pablo,” received rave reviews from esteemed magazines such as Pitchfork and Rolling Stone.

But since his beginning, West was always surrounded by controversy. West’s decision to interrupt Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech during the 2009 VMAs will forever be known as one of his worst moments.

He was almost always seen as the bad guy of the music industry after multiple tirades during concerts, on Twitter and during talk show appearances. He brought a pretentious yet fearless attitude to the music industry that made him such an interesting character.

Usually, celebrities swarmed with as much controversy as West usually fade from the limelight fairly quickly; however, West fed off of it and made a name for himself.

Taking a step back and seeing West for all that he has done allows for parallels to be drawn to a certain character: Donald Trump.

Trump has seen his fair share of controversy even before his decision to run for president. He’s had multiple sexual assault allegations that stemmed from beauty pageants from the 1970s and on. Trump Management was sued in 1973 for refusing to “rent or negotiate rentals because of race and color.” And he has had multiple bankruptcies that brought into question his abilities as a businessman.

Trump was a celebrity also known for his pretentiousness and fearlessness, as seen throughout his campaign speeches as well as through his Twitter account.

Even more controversies developed during his presidential campaign, leading many Americans to think: “There’s no way he can be president.” Yet, the Trump campaign prevailed.

Similarly, regardless of what he said or did, West produced success after success with his music. It seemed nothing could stop West, until just recently when news was released of his decision to check himself into rehab due to psychological problems. Ever since then, West has kept quiet.

While Kanye West has seemed to hit a brief pause in his creative process, Trump seems to be steamrolling his way into leaving a lasting impact on the government, the people of the U. S. and the entire world.

But what sets them apart? Why does it seem that Trump cannot be halted in his recent years of success?

In a recent episode of “The Daily Show,” host Trevor Noah pushed a strong point: The difference between candidate Trump and President Trump is that the people of the U. S. now have to “live in his crazy reality.”

Noah mentioned that the president is essentially choosing what he wants to be true. Any news that points out his flaws suddenly becomes “fake news,” and he seems to go out of his way to shun any medium of news that attempts to call him out.

The scary part is it almost seems to be working. We look around and news is everywhere, but we can’t seem to determine what to trust and what not to trust. By generating so much controversy around himself, Trump has seemingly developed a shroud of discrepancies that we are unable to remove.

Kanye West could never reach such heightened controversy in the news, which is why he will probably not ever be as famous as Donald Trump. Everything he did was shrugged off because he didn’t irk the right audience.

The Trump administration has pushed all of the right buttons to create an uproar in our society. We can march all we want, plaster social media with our opinions and look to express satire in our television shows, but it’s not an efficient way to call for change. Not only is it reflecting poorly on Trump, but on society as well.

For years, Kanye has elicited similar emotions from rap fans, who oscillate between loving his music and hating his public persona. But when Donald Trump begins to do the exact same things on a much larger scale, it becomes less of a laughing matter and starts to irk the entire nation.

Erratic childlike behavior can meet its match and be stopped, but the American people simply haven’t found that edge yet. The passion is there and the numbers are there, but the correct approach isn’t. That’s what needs change.

Because at this point, Kanye 2020 doesn’t seem like a horrible idea.

Saketh is a freshman in DGS.
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