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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: The Ancient ‘Conservative’ Tradition of Exploiting the Vulnerable for Money & Publicity

Late Night Open Thread: The Ancient ‘Conservative’ Tradition of Exploiting the Vulnerable for Money & Publicity

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That does not sound at all like a cult, does it? Perhaps it’s just as well, for the Kanyatics (Yeezoids?) who might otherwise end up in peonage (if not in a line for the cyanide Flavor-Aid), that The Artist Formerly Known As Kanye has opened his heart & his wallet to some extremely sketchy new ‘friends’…

I knew Candace Owens, professional ‘Every Rich Rightwinger’s Black Friend, Once the Check Clears’, was somehow involved in the Parler social-media grift. But until this past week, I didn’t know she was married to a right-wing British Bullingdon alum who *just happens* to be Parler’s CEO. Per the Financial Times:

… Parler’s parent company, Parlement Technologies, announced the unexpected acquisition on Monday, without disclosing financial details. The Nashville-based business said it had struck an “agreement in principle” with West, who has changed his name to Ye, and that the deal was expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Farmer, a former hedge fund partner and candidate for the UK’s Brexit party, took over as head of Parler in May last year after his predecessor, John Matze, was fired after disagreements with its key backer, Republican mega-donor Rebekah Mercer.

Farmer’s wife, rightwing commentator Candace Owens, appeared with West at his fashion show in Paris earlier this month. Both wore T-shirts with the controversial phrase “White Lives Matter”, an apparent critique on the Black Lives Matter movement…

In September, Parlement said it had raised a $16mn funding round, taking its total funding to $56mn. At the same time it acquired a cloud infrastructure company, offering an alternative to providers such as Amazon Web Services, which had denied Parler hosting services in the wake of the Capitol riots.

However it is less popular than other niche rivals; according to data.ai, the platform had 983,000 monthly active users in the first half of the year, compared with 2.4mn Truth Social users…

The Artist Now Known As Ye is — to put it charitably — going through a bad patch, emotionally. But he’s officially worth two billion dollars, and both his catalog and his various fashion / lifestyle spinoffs are nice little earners. If the Republican Party can exploit a celebrity ex-football star with TBI for their own purposes, obviously it’s cricket for the bottom feeders of MAGAworld-media to lamprey their own wounded shark…

Still a few bugs in the system!

Well, at least it was a bromance, until Jared’s fee-fees were wounded and/or Ivanka saw Balenciaga cut ties with Ye. “Sources”:

All they need now is a high-profile gun-humper, for the MAGAtfecta. Apparently Kyle Rittenhouse has a YouTube channel now — until it gets shut down for violation of the terms of service — maybe Ye’s creative team can package him as a rapper, or something? (Ted Nugent always asks too much for endorsements, and besides, Nugent’s audience is… probably not Kanye’s.)

Reader Interactions

89Comments

  2. 2.

    UncleEbeneezer

    “Sources tell Rolling Stone that Trump wants to distance himself from Kanye West, calling him too “crazy” and saying he needs professional “help.””

    Damn, I never thought I’d agree with Trump on anything.

  6. 6.

    Sanjeev

    I see Candace Owen’s husband went to Oxford where he studied theology.

    I knew a British guy who went to a well know public school (ie expensive private school). He told me about 30% of his class went to Oxbridge. One of the reasons – these public schools offer A level courses in subjects like theology, Greek and Roman Classics etc.  Not much competition from the plebs to get into those courses at Oxbridge.

  8. 8.

    Captain C

    That does not sound at all like a cult, does it? Perhaps it’s just as well, for the Kanyatics (Yeezoids?) who might otherwise end up in peonage

    A cult, with a company town that you willingly buy into.  Nothing bad could possibly come of that.

  10. 10.

    Captain C

    Sources tell Rolling Stone that Trump wants to distance himself from Kanye West, calling him too “crazy” and saying he needs professional “help.”

    I wonder how much of that is TFG trying to appease his racist marks.  I wonder if the sources include a certain John Barron.

  17. 17.

    The Moar You Know

    What’s pissing me off is that this fucker is going to end up broke and homeless someday – I think sooner than most would think – and I’m going to feel bad about it.  And I’d like not to.  He’s a rather awful human being.

  22. 22.

    Brachiator

    That does not sound at all like a cult, does it? Perhaps it’s just as well, for the Kanyatics (Yeezoids?) who might otherwise end up in peonage (if not in a line for the cyanide Flavor-Aid), that The Artist Formerly Known As Kanye has opened his heart & his wallet to some extremely sketchy new ‘friends’…

    No, not a cult. I don’t see that Kanye, or Ye, or whoever, has much in the way of followers. Because of his wealth and talent, he attracts media attention, but otherwise he, Elon Musk and some others are borderline crazy celebrities who might do something amazing or require serious medical attention.

  23. 23.

    Splitting Image

    Sources told Rolling Stone that Kanye West wants to make his own mini-city called the “Yecosystem” and that the self-sustained enterprise would have its own branded homes, retail stores that sell Yecosystem-branded food items and beverages

    Can’t he just buy the Old West town one of the Koch brothers built some years back? Two of the four are doornails and the other two are in their 80s. They won’t be long.

  26. 26.

    karen marie

    Anyone who believes the Count of Three Card Monte Crisco’s fake twitter has 2.4m “active users,” please contact me about a lovely bridge I have for sale.

  27. 27.

    divF

    @Sanjeev: In one of Nancy Mitford’s novels, a character was a Professor of Pastoral Theology at Oxford. I thought that was a made-up thing by Mitford, but there is such a sub-field of theology, and even such a chair at Oxford.

  28. 28.

    Peke Daddy

    @NotMax: ​

    @NotMax: ​
     From a Ye source quoted in Rolling Stone: “He’s trying to do shit that people couldn’t even conceive of and he’s trying to make it happen…” True dat.

  29. 29.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @divF: It’s essentially the field of study of how to get the rubes to believe the nonsense you spout from the pulpit.

    Carnival barkers go through a similar but less expensive process.

  31. 31.

    m.j.

    Didn’t the guy who gave us Domino’s Pizza (spit) have an idea for a planned Catholic community many years ago?

    How did that work out?

  32. 32.

    JaySinWA

    @UncleEbeneezer: There’s probably a Trump threat brewing from the Parler gang. Trumpism smells better without Trump

    ETA Ye is going to get fleeced, but I think Trump’s spidey sense is going off about the risk to him as well. Somebody is going to try to take him down to take the leadership role.

    Milk Ye’s wealth and that’s a powerful arsenal.

  34. 34.

    Kelly

    It’s raining here in the western Oregon Cascade foothills! It’s gonna rain for at least a week! The smoke is gone and fire season is finally over. We’re gonna sleep tonight to sound of the wind and rain with the window open just crack.

  35. 35.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Kelly: I lived many years back East.  You just don’t appreciate rain like you do out here in the West, eh?  I know exactly how you feel: the sound of rain pitter-pattering on the roof is one of those comforting sounds now, after 15yr out here.  I’m happy for you and Oregon, and hope for the same here in California soonest.

  36. 36.

    Citizen Alan

    @The Moar You Know: Oh I doubt it. At $2billion, he’s well above the point at which it’s effectively impossible to end up poor. Call it the Brewster’s Millions Effect. He’ll never spend so much money that he won’t be able to live in opulence on the interest accrued on whatever is left.

  37. 37.

    Citizen Alan

    Also, is Ye (God, such a preposterous name) supposed to be pronounced like “Yee” (as in “Ye Gods!”) or “Yay” (as in “Yay! What an idiot!”)

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    @Citizen Alan:

    Oh I doubt it. At $2billion, he’s well above the point at which it’s effectively impossible to end up poor. Call it the Brewster’s Millions Effect. He’ll never spend so much money that he won’t be able to live in opulence on the interest accrued on whatever is left.

    I don’t know. A few more bad investments like this Parler deal might seriously deplete his wealth.

    He and Musk seem to be trying to see who can throw more money down a rat hole.

  41. 41.

    ian

    @Citizen Alan: I would assume Yay, since from my understanding the Ye is just the truncated Kanye.

    Here is some rando website saying it is the “Yay”, take that with as much salt as you feel necessary.

  43. 43.

    Geminid

    Yesterday Senator Lisa Murkowski addressed the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage. After she was introduced to a standing ovation, Murkowski spoke of the benefits coming to Alaska’s rural communities by way of the Infrastructure bill.

    Afterwards reporter Zach Hughs of Anchorage Daily News.com asked Murkowski if she is planning to rank Democratic Representative Mary Peltola first in the upcoming election.

    “Yes I am,” replied Murkowski.

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    @eclare: I found it on Ragnarok Lobster’s timeline (@eclecticbrotha). Mr. Lobster has a full time job at a Chicagoland police station, but runs a kind of Democratic news service in his time off.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    Sources told Rolling Stone that Kanye West wants to make his own mini-city called the “Yecosystem”

    One word: Baudville!

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I took my coffee out on the porch just now and saw a nice, clear pre-dawn sky. There was a crescent moon hovering in the east, and in the southeast I could see Orion. He looked like he was about to let fly an arrow at Sarah Palin.

  52. 52.

    LiminalOwl

    @Albatrossity: I don’t know of any evidence that Candace Owens has a serious mental illness; in my book, that gives her a slight edge (by removing the scrap of an excuse).

  54. 54.

    geg6

    My oldest brother had bipolar disorder, as does West.  Everything I read about this guy gives me flashbacks to the times he went off his meds.  It’s sad to see these grifters taking advantage of a guy who is obviously in the midst of a bout of bipolar psychosis.  With his mother dead and his wife dumping him, he apparently has no one around him who cares for him.  Ugh.

  55. 55.

    Amir Khalid

    @geg6:

    It’s my understanding that Ye willfully refuses to take his meds, which imples that his bipolar condition is basically out of control all the time. I can’t say I blame Kim Kardashian for feeling unable to cope with that.

  57. 57.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Baud:

    Deputinizeville will have a plethora of taco trucks, nude swimming pools, bars, nightclubs, drag venues, weed shops, luxury steakhouses, sushi joints, doner stands, gyro stalls,  distilleries with tasting experiences, sex clubs, libraries, casinos, brothels and sports books.

    And churches will pay property tax, along with an entertainment license.

    There will never be a sad foray into family friendly stuff like Vegas attempted in the 90s….

  58. 58.

    eclare

    @Amir Khalid:   That is my understanding, and I agree with you about Kim.  She put that statement out a few years ago about mental illness, but things have only gotten worse.

  61. 61.

    Tony G

    I guess I could look up and listen to some of “Ye”‘s music, but there are about 900 things that I’d rather do first.  Maybe he’s a musical genius who just happens to be mentally ill?  I have no idea.

  66. 66.

    Alce _e_ardillo

    @Amir Khalid: People with schizoaffective disorders,of which bipolar is one type, often have anosognosia- the inability to recognize that they are ill. It goes deeper than denial .

  67. 67.

    A Man for All Seaonings (formerly Geeno)

    @Baud:

    Shouldn’t it be Baudeville?

    A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer … where are your pants?

  68. 68.

    Geminid

    I must have a dull life because when I think of a Geminidville I project a place where I could eat at a different pancake house and play a different miniature golf each day for a month, while listening to Beach Music on the radio.

    But Myrtle Beach already has all this!

  70. 70.

    Tony G

    @m.j.: I grew up in an unplanned Catholic community in New Jersey back in the day.  Everyone just did whatever they wanted to do Monday through Friday, “confessed” on Saturday, and then genuflected on command on Sunday.  The system worked perfectly!  The dozen liquor stores and bars in town helped to keep things moving smoothly.

  71. 71.

    Tony G

    @Alce _e_ardillo: Mental health aside, “Ye” and Candace are just following the Invisible Hand of the market.  There are fewer Black people than white people spouting right-wing dogma, so a Black person in this line of work will be paid more.  Supply and demand.

  72. 72.

    Kropacetic

    @Tony G: Ah, the old salvation through adherence to cultural Chrisitanity rather than moral behavior*, pathetic.

    *Moral as defined by traditional religious values, I have no problem with conspicuous drug and sex consumption myself.

  73. 73.

    Tony G

    @Kropacetic: Yeah, Catholicism is the really “old time religion” (going back almost 2000 years).  From my experience, though, the Catholic “system” offered a kind of freedom.  With the “shaking the etch-a-sketch” option of “Confession” always available, there wasn’t much emphasis on scaring people with the Fires of Hell.   People could go a little nuts and then “confess” on Saturday.   Just follow the rules and you’ll be OK.  By the time I was a teenager I got tired of following the rules and bailed on religion, but I feel like the reason that Catholicism has persisted for two millennia is that it recognizes human frailty and offers a way to escape punishment.  Of all the religions that I don’t believe in, I guess I prefer Catholicism.  (Or maybe Buddhism.  My wife grew up as a Buddhist, and just believes in “honoring the spirit that resides in everything”.)   It’s those Calvinist kooks that make no sense to me!

  74. 74.

    Kropacetic

    @Tony G: but I feel like the reason that Catholicism has persisted for two millennia is that it recognizes human frailty and offers a way to escape punishment.

    Consider, though, that before it was confession it was taking money from parishioners who likely had little to none; all to stave off a punishment that is likely imaginary.

    The true punishments for sinful lifestyle* are very much terrestrial and shared by all of us.

    *Y’know, racism, misogyny, greed, abuse of power…

  75. 75.

    Alce _e_ardillo

    @Tony G: Ye is surrounded by sycophantic leeches who will bleed him dry, then attach themselves to the next victim without a second thought. Owens will know when her grift has run dry, and move on. Ye might think he’s running the scam, but in reality it’s running him.

     

    @Tony G:

  78. 78.

    Citizen Alan

    @Baud:  See, this is what I’m talking about. If it is pronounced yay like in Kanye, bad puns like that don’t make any sense. YEE-cosysrem is silly. But YAY-system is downright incoherent.

  79. 79.

    Tony G

    @Cameron: Hah.  I found this, if that’s what you meant … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqMAdOKzfIk.   That’s actually very good (and not what I, an old white boomer, expected at all).  So maybe (from a boomer perspective) Kanye is like Keith Moon — talented at one thing, but a lunatic in general.  At least Keith Moon limited his craziness to self-destruction, without sucking up to right-wing politicians.  Thanks.

  80. 80.

    Citizen Alan

    @Tony G: This.  There is absolutely nothing special or unusual about self loathing black people who figure they can win a place for themselves in elite swhitw ociety by becoming tireless advocates for white supremacy. Clarence Thomas laid the trail over 30 years ago.

  81. 81.

    Tony G

    @Kropacetic: Oh, of course, the Catholic Church has always been deeply corrupt (1000 years ago and now), and politically the Catholic Church has opposed almost every progressive idea for the past 500 years.  That’s why I abandoned it almost 50 years ago.  I guess that, essentially, I look back at that religion with some nostalgia because I grew up with its traditions and rituals, and my parents (“God bless them”) never made a big deal of the dogma.   (It’s partially a cultural thing — fo example, I still put up a manger scene next to the Christmas tree every year.)  I certainly haven’t followed its church rituals for almost 50 years, nor have I raised my sons (now adults) with any religion.  In contrast, I find the Calvinist ideology in some flavors of Protestantism — the idea (if I understand it) that everyone except “the elect” are predestined to eternally burn in hell — to be a loathsome dogma.  To paraphrase a line from Catch-22, I prefer to not-believe in a God who is relatively kind and merciful.  The Catholic God is like a corrupt politician who can be bribed.  The Calvinist God (in my conception) is like a fanatic who cannot be influenced or reasoned with.

  83. 83.

    Kropacetic

    @Tony G: Yeah, I was raised Catholic too.  That background is a large piece of my current self-styled unitarian universalist outlook.

    I may have been lucky, but I haven’t seen a lot of that “morality in faith without acts” outlook among Catholics I’ve known in my personal life.  I associate it more with Evangelicals.

    But the Confession scenario you described fits it to a T and appears to me as only marginally better than indulgences.

  84. 84.

    Tony G

    @Kropacetic: Yup.  In the time and place of my childhood/adolescence (sixties and early seventies in a blue-collar New Jersey town) about 90% of the kids I knew were Catholic (Irish/Italian/Polish mostly).  (I actually didn’t realize until I took a Sociology class in college that most Americans are Protestant.). I am eternally thankful to my parents for having sent me to public schools instead of Catholic schools (probably because they didn’t want to pay the tuition).  (There was actually a ritual in which every September a new batch of “wild” kids would enter the public schools because they’d been kicked out of the Catholic schools.)  The Catholic stuff (mass, confession, “Sunday School”) was just a part of life, no more important or noteworthy than going to school or playing stickball.  It was just kind of a routine that almost everybody followed.  There were a few people who really did bad things (mostly spousal abuse that was well hidden), and a few others who took their religion seriously, but for most of us it was just another routine, like taking the garbage to the curb twice a week.  That’s why I think of it as oddly liberating.  As long as you went through the routine rituals, you could do what you wanted to do with nobody (except the police in rare, extreme cases) bothering you.

  85. 85.

    Kropacetic

    @Tony G: I can appreciate that. Even though I went to Catholic school (my parents didn’t want us anywhere near Boston public schools), they weren’t too doctrinaire about things even there.

    Whatever horrors have been perpetrated by the high muckymucks, whether recently or long ago, Catholics seem about as alright as anyone else on average.

  86. 86.

    StringOnAStick

    @Kelly: The hard rain last night in Bend was glorious!  Bits of blue sky that is actually blue and not a whitish smoky haze are visible right now.  I’m sure it will take a lot more to finally out out the Cedar Creek fire; so glad to see the wet season begin.

  88. 88.

    Tony G

    @Kropacetic: Yeah.  When I think about it, I realize that a big part of the reason why I have somewhat fond memories of “life as a Catholic kid” is the fact that I’m a heterosexual male.  If I had been gay or a female the ugliness of that institution would have been a lot more evident to me.  (I guess it’s similar to the fact that, as a “white” guy, I’ve never had any really bad experience with the police.  Every person lives in his/her own bubble, constructed from gender/race/economic-class, whatever.)

  89. 89.

    Tony G

    @Mo MacArbie: Hearing ““We Built This City” on the radio in 1985 was a moment that still leaves me traumatized.  The Jefferson Airplane had been (and still is) one of my favorite bands … and they gradually devolved into that painful song.  I’m convinced that somehow Reagan was to blame.

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