Kanye West's 2024 Presidential Campaign / #Ye24

Overview

Kanye West's 2024 Presidential Campaign, also known for the hashtag #Ye24, refers to rapper and entrepreneur Kanye West (also known as Ye) and his 2024 U.S. presidential bid, which was first mentioned in 2020 after his previous attempt. The 2024 campaign officially began when Kanye announced his candidacy and campaign manager Milo Yiannopoulos in November 2022, as well as his viral and controversial appearance on Infowars shortly after.

Background

Ye / Kanye West's 2020 Presidential Campaign

Ye has previously made efforts toward attaining the U.S. presidency by running as an independent candidate in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. His campaign was announced via Twitter, with further developments unfolding to reveal that he would be running under "The Birthday Party" ticket and planned on operating a White House manner inspired by the fictional nation of Wakanda from Black Panther.

Ye / Kanye West's 2024 Presidential Bid Announcement

On November 3rd, 2020, Kanye West tweeted^[1] an image of himself standing in front of a screen displaying part of an electoral map, alongside a caption that read, "WELP KANYE 2024." The post can be accessed via Internet Archive, and gathered over 1,900 likes in two years (seen below).

In August 2021, Kanye released merch for his album Donda, including a $200 layered T-shirt that featured both the presidential seal and the number "2024" (seen below).^[2]

On November 20th, 2022, Kanye confirmed his 2024 presidential bid while speaking to paparazzi, adding that right-wing political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos is "working on the campaign." YouTube^[3] channel X17onlineVideo posted a video of Kanye's interaction with the paparazzi, gathering over 150,000 views in 12 days. The rapper can be seen walking with and gesturing toward Yiannopoulos in the footage.

Developments

Meeting with Trump and Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago

On November 22nd, 2022, Kanye visited former U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. He was accompanied by Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, self-professed incel and Holocaust denier.^[4] On November 24th, Ye posted a video titled, "Yeezy HQ" and "Mar-a-Lago Debrief," to his Twitter.^[5] In the video, Ye states that Trump was "very impressed" by Fuentes. West also states that, upon asking Trump to be his running mate for the 2024 elections, "Trump started basically screaming at me at the table telling me I was going to lose — I mean has that ever worked for anyone in history. I'm like hold on, hold on, hold on, Trump, you're talking to Ye."

Tim Pool, West, Fuentes and Yiannopoulos Interview

On November 28, 2022, YouTuber and political journalist Tim Pool interviewed Kanye West, Nick Fuentes and Milo Yiannopoulos about West's future. The interview was livestreamed and can be accessed via Pool's YouTube^[6] channel, where it has gathered over 1.3 million views in three days (seen below).

Ye 2024 Campaign Logo

Kanye posted an image of a swastika nestled in a Star of David to Twitter on December 1st, 2022, alongside a caption that read, "YE24." This followed an appearance on Alex Jones' show Infowars where he made several antisemitic claims. The tweet displayed an image of a Photoshop window containing the symbol, which is also known as the Raëlian symbol. The project file is named, "YE24," and many speculated he may be using the symbol to promote his 2024 presidential run.

Online Reactions

On December 1st, 2022, Tim Pool tweeted that Kanye had a shot at winning the 2024 presidential election, gathering over 9,000 likes in a day (seen below, right). On the same day, Tim then retracted his statement by saying, "holy fuck was I wrong, I tweeted this before he did that interview and well, fuck me I was very wrong." The tweet gathered over 16,000 likes in a day (seen below, right).

Search Interest

External References