Nope, Kanye Didn't Vote For Trump

The 2016 Crazy Train to Hell is still rolling and, apparently, December has some slick new tracks because, believe it or not, this thing is speeding up. (This is how trains work, yes?) On Tuesday morning, news came out that Kanye West was meeting with Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York City, which raises a number of questions namely: Why? What? Is he going to be given a position? And, [insert incoherent garbles of pain and confusion followed by a question mark]. Basically, this news is wild, and it's probably leading a lot of people to wonder whether Kanye West voted for Donald Trump in the election? Being a supporter would explain why he'd be there, right?

If you followed the news surrounding West's concerts prior to his Nov. 21 hospitalization for exhaustion, you probably heard that he spoke out about Trump at one of his shows, and confirmed that, no, he did not vote for Trump. But, the reason he didn't vote for him was because he didn't vote at all, not because he didn't support the now president-elect, and he claimed he would've voted for him had he voted.

"I told you all I didn’t vote right?" he told the crowd at his San Jose show on Nov. 17. "But if I were to have voted, I would have voted for Trump."

West added, ""Specifically to black people, stop focusing on racism. This world is racist, OK? Let’s stop being distracted…it’s just a f*cking fact, we are in a racist country, period ... Not one or the other candidate was going to instantly be able to change that, because of [their] views."

The rapper/designer also said of his opinion on Trump, "That don’t mean that I don’t think that Black Lives Matter. That don’t mean I don’t think that I’m a believer in women’s rights. That don’t mean I don’t believe in gay marriage. That don’t mean that I don’t believe in these things because that was the guy I would have voted for."

West's mid-concert speech about politics and about Trump was pretty lengthy and also touched on West's previous statement that he was interested in running for president himself in 2020. It wasn't totally clear why exactly the 39-year-old would want to vote for Trump, but it seemed that he was intrigued by the idea of someone handling the presidency in a different way than past presidents had.

"I’m concerned not about the idea of being president or the actual job of it," he said at the time. "I’m concerned about putting our concept of how to do the job in a new way. And if no one will do it in that way I will take position in 2020 and do it myself."

Time will tell if he actually runs in 2020. For now, I just want to know if his potential campaign came up in his meeting with Trump. (Along with, well, everything else they were talking about.)