Kanye West broke down in tears during a rambling presidential campaign rally in South Carolina - ABC News

To the extent it can be said Kanye West has a campaign, Kanye West has held a campaign rally.

Over the weekend, the 43-year-old rapper and designer gave a rambling and at times incoherent address at a Charleston, South Carolina, wedding venue and convention centre.

Kanye's foray into politics has intrigued and confused fans for years.

Now, he's left voters even more befuddled over whether his 2020 presidential campaign is genuine or a publicity stunt to help sell albums or merchandise.

What did he say?

He spoke for an hour. He had no microphone. He wore a military style vest and had "2020" shaved into the back of his head.

West swore, argued with people, invoked God and made more false claims about slavery.

He also broke down in tears at one point while describing how he was nearly aborted by his parents.

"My mum saved my life. My dad wanted to abort me … There would have been no Kanye West."

Loading

At one point, he told the audience it was understandable they would be excited because he was "a 132 IQ genius that literally went to the hospital because his brain was too big for his skull".

But when cheers and applause interrupted him, he appeared to get angry: "Absolutely no clapping."

Did he actually talk about policy?

Not really.

West said that while he believes abortion should be legal, financial incentives to help struggling mothers could be a way to discourage the practice.

"Everybody that has a baby gets a million dollars," he said as an example.

"Abortion should be legal because guess what? The law is not by God anyway, so what is legality?"

The crowd was a few hundred mostly young people.(Reuters: Randall Hill)

He equated social media — but also the country at large — with a situation in which you are given a new Mercedes but the car is parked across the street, so have to cross the street to get it and end up getting hit by a car trying to walk to your new car.

Then something inaudible happened and he said:

"But wait a second, where did the bricks come from? Did you put the bricks in the street? Did you put the bricks in the street?"

He invited random members of the audience to come on stage and talk about issues important to them, though many of them were inaudible.

At least one person was ejected from the event for unknown reasons.

He talked about his Adidas deal and its effect on the company's share price and said that 19th Century abolitionist Harriet Tubman "never actually freed the slaves".

Tubman is widely credited with helping dozens of slaves escape to the North via the Underground Railroad.

Loading

So … is this campaign serious?

It's still not clear.

When he announced his candidacy on Twitter two weeks ago, and subsequently gave his first interview to Forbes, there was a lot of room for scepticism because he had:

• no campaign apparatus in place
• no domestic policy
• no foreign policy
• no personal history of having voted
• no paperwork filed with federal election authorities
• new music to promote
• a history of narcissism

Plus, he had already missed the deadline to appear on ballots in key states, including Florida and New Mexico, and spent part of that interview spreading dangerous vaccine misinformation.

Now, he has qualified to appear on Oklahoma's presidential ballot, the first state where he met the requirements before the filing deadline (the requirement being you just pay $US35,000).

And he has reportedly filed his presidential candidacy with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) — but then so have more than 1,000 other people. You just sign two forms.

In any case, when Kanye first tweeted his intention to run, Inside Elections' editor Nathan Gonzales said it might be too late.

"There's a way to run as an outsider but it's hard and expensive, and I think West, or anyone else, has missed their window of opportunity to have a meaningful impact," he said.

Most analysts share that view.

Some say even filing with the FEC is so easy it proves little about West's true motivation.

What happens next?

West needs to collect 10,000 signatures by tonight (Australian time) to appear on the South Carolina ballot, according to that state's law.

He's trying to get those.

Loading

There are still major hurdles for him to get on ballots even in states that generate few electoral college votes (remember, the US has a complex system for voting).

There's no word on when another rally might happen and on social media, the reaction to this one was mixed.

While some praised his views on abortion, others bristled at his claims about slavery and made references to his public struggles with mental health.

Loading

ABC/Reuters/AP

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiYmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA3LTIwL2thbnllLXdlc3QtaG9sZHMtcG9saXRpY2FsLXJhbGx5LWluLXNvdXRoLWNhcm9saW5hLzEyNDcxOTg40gEnaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuYWJjLm5ldC5hdS9hcnRpY2xlLzEyNDcxOTg4?oc=5

2020-07-20 02:28:00Z
52780932583877