‘Very cynical and very racist’ Republican operatives are exploiting Kanye West’s mental illness: columnist

Writing in the Washington Post this Thursday, Molly Roberts says that the Republicans who are enabling Kanye West's presidential candidacy "are very cynical, very racist and also very wrong."

"Their strategy rests on a misunderstanding both of Black voters and of their own," she writes.

While Kanye's wife Kim Kardashian West warned about his bipolar disorder and pleaded with the public to "give grace" to individuals like him, Republicans have appropriated West’s electoral cause as their own are offering a "mixture of enablement and exploitation," according to Roberts.

"This gambit wouldn’t be happening if West were in better health, because it’s much easier to persuade a billionaire with zero political experience to fork over legal fees for catapulting him over the finish line to nowhere, just as the clock is running out, when he’s struggling to maintain his balance," Roberts writes. "And it also wouldn’t be happening if West weren’t Black, because the thinking behind this old-fashioned, third-party ploy relies on reducing both the candidate and his imaginary supporters to their race."

Read the full op-ed over at The Washington Post.