Tim Pool Shows the World Kanye's True Face
Tim Pool Shows the World Kanye's True Face
In early 2019, I wrote an article for Quillette praising Tim Pool and Joe Rogan for their excellent interrogation of then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and then Twitter’s Global Lead For Legal Policy and Trust & Safety, Vijaya Gadde over issues of censorship.
While I frequently disagree with Tim’s views, as you can see from my own appearance on his show, I like and respect Tim - he’s a guy that follows his convictions with integrity and he’s worked his butt off to build an incredible online platform that deserves acknowledgement and recognition.
But, every now and again, I can’t help but wince at some of the guests who appear on his show. No more so, than when a friend messaged me last night to say that Kanye, Milo Yiannopoulos and Nick Fuentes were coming on Timcast. I will not spend time explaining why these people produced that reaction in me - I would encourage uninitiated readers to do their own research.
In any event, the three men were on Tim’s show last night to talk about a recent dinner with Donald Trump which caused mass controversy, with Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence calling on his former boss to apologise. This follows a string of comments by Kanye, including a tweet in which he promised to go to “death con 3” on Jewish people, which many believe are anti-Semitic.
As regular readers will know, my own view is that the nature and scale of racism in Western societies have been powerfully and purposefully exaggerated by a vocal minority who want power and attention. I do not believe that everyone who has ever said something that might be considered racially insensitive is a racist or should be treated as such. Furthermore, I do not believe it is possible to “eliminate racism” as many demand.
We currently live and will always live in societies that are not able to prevent much more serious crimes like rape, murder and terrorism - the idea that we will reach some sort of anti-racist utopia is not just a dream, it is a deliberate attempt to hold us to impossible standards to make sure we can never succeed. So that no one could ever explain in public, as I have done many times, that Britain, the US and much of the rest of the West are the most open, welcoming, tolerant countries in the history of humanity, without being smeared, misrepresented and attacked.
Like millions of people, I have watched the media attempt to pin the allegation of racism on innocent people, buildings and even the countryside. Like millions of people, when I hear that someone has been accused of being racist, my initial reaction is not what it once was. And herein lies the problem: if everyone is racist, then no one is. The reason this is such an issue is that while the allegations are often exaggerated or unfounded, they are still accurate some of the time because some people are racist.
With this in mind, I highly recommend watching the first 20 minutes of the attempted conversation between Kanye and Pool.
While Tim is keen to set the broader context and discuss the anti-Semitism allegations later, Kanye wants to get into it straight away. He explains that “they” want to put him in jail and “they” are trying to mess with his finances, with every “they” producing a knowing giggle from the other two guests.
While who “they” are is initially unclear, the confusion evaporates rapidly as Kanye explains that Obama was influenced by Rahm Emmanuel, his Jewish Chief of Staff, while Trump had Jared Kushner, his Jewish son-in-law and Senior Advisor, to do the same. He is about to launch into a history lesson as he begins to say “Since 1945…” but is interrupted by Pool who challenges Kanye to stop extrapolating from two individuals and projecting onto a whole ethnic group. This produces another rant from Kanye which ends when Pool says “I think they’ve been extremely unfair to you” and Kanye immediately shoots back with “Who is they though? We can’t say who they is, can we?”.
When Pool explains that they are the “corporate press” and that he doesn’t use the word “they” in the way that his guests do, Fuentes helpfully chimes in with “It is them though, isn’t it?”. Pool disagrees again and begins to explain why. Kanye storm outs in response.
The immediate aftermath is interesting also, with Kanye, who had seconds ago invoked his right to free speech, no longer in the room, Pool attempts to explain that he is happy to have people on the show and hear them out but when they start implying that the Jews are behind it all, he isn’t going to let that go without a conversation. It is at this point that Milo walks out to “make sure he’s cool”, followed by Fuentes. None of the guests are seen again, except when a member of staff enters the studio because “he wants his phone”.
As one of the people who winced on seeing the line-up on Timcast last night, I congratulate Tim on doing the very same thing I praised him for in 2019: asking the right questions in public. Few will walk away from watching this discussion with any doubt as to Kanye’s inability to separate individual Jewish people he has beef with from Jewish people as a whole. His thinking is clearly racist and he appears to be spending increasing amounts of time around people who share such views.
That is his right and I have no wish to see him cancelled, banned from making music or prevented from having a career in politics. But it was extremely useful to see his views challenged and I am glad the conversation happened. A textbook example of free speech working as intended - well done, Tim!
Might it be possible that Kanye, who has bipolar disorder and displays unmistakable manic and paranoid behaviours, isn’t receiving adequate support or medical care and is being taken advantage of by YouTube personalities who have no interest in helping West but in likes, subscribers, and comments for the algorithm?
Mental illness doesn’t excuse one from being held accountable, and West has indeed said some unfortunate things in his many rants over the years. Still, he, unfortunately, says whatever comes into his head at any given time. In contrast, most of us have a filter that warns us something might not be palatable for public consumption before we say it.
West should retire from the public eye immediately, get treatment for his manic and paranoid behaviours, and hire a decent publicist—though I don’t envy the person who accepts that role. He can eventually pay some form of public penance to “the Jews”, and all will be forgotten in time.
After watching the interview that you reference, I don't really see the host's handling of the situation as deserving quite the level of accolades that you seem to. I certainly agree with him that his show is not intended to be a platform that he simply turns over to his guest to give a one-sided speech, and respect his willingness to challenge Kanye, not backing down as Kanye starts walking out. What I found to be a bit unhelpful was the way that he entered straight into discussion, sort of on Kanye's 'level', without asking for clarification on what was meant by specific things Kanye said. I have to admit that, in the span of just a few sentences, Kanye made so many innuendos that deserved, if not demanded explanation, that it would take a great degree of calm and collected focus to be able to hold the interview in anything like a sane, organized train of thought. But, then again, trying to have a sane discussion with someone who is presenting with such extreme levels of loose associations being thrown together as if they support an implied thesis that became increasingly manifest as delusional, may be impossible for anyone. I was just thinking that it might be helpful to ask questions like, "Trying to arrest you? Could you tell the viewers how you became aware of that?" But, again, Tim was fighting a losing battle from the start and it probably would have made no difference how he went about trying to bring the conversation into reality.
One thing that stood out was that the very thing that Kanye might say about woke-ists, namely, that they forward their agendas for control by spewing out unfounded labels/characterizations onto people, not based on the legitimacy of those characterizations, but on fact that those people have opposing views from theirs, is exactly what he's doing. Which, to me, pretty clearly reveals that there is a deeper motivating force. To project malevolence onto others in reaction to not being allowed to have their way is a very common tendency among children. And when a person does not develop a mature sense of self during their formative years, they wind up in an endless pursuit of validation that they can only get through the responses they get from others. That's the essence of narcissism. The subconscious importance of meeting that insatiable craving for validation makes criticism or anything perceived as disrespect absolutely untenable. And to the narcissist (or, one with strong narcissistic tendencies), an extremely harsh reaction to rejection seems merited. When the degree of such underlying compulsions reach certain levels, developing specific scape-goats (eg groups) can fit very effectively in the story that they tell themselves.
The pursuit of being seen as 'special' is shockingly widespread today. The eager pursuit of some in-vogue diagnosis or some designation that gives one a "special identity" is rampant. And just try to interject the notion that there is nothing actually new here, other than specific forms and maybe prevalence, and get ready to be crucified. There are lots of articles from 10+ years ago written by school counselors and therapists discussing the drastic increase in the levels of psychological disfunction and self-diagnosed conditions among youth. And now that those youth are young adults, the secret is plain for all to see.