History is full of highly influential thinkers and artists who have expressed viciously hateful views, only to portray themselves as anything but that when called out. Antisemitism, in particular, seems to attract a special kind of “I’m not against Jews” backpedaling among people desperate to not be seen as Jew-haters while they spew repellent Jew hate.
In my book Jewish Space Lasers I write about a few of the most egregious examples, including Pat Robertson defending himself as a friend of the Jewish people after rehashing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his book The New World Order, and conspiracy kingpin Bill Cooper printing the entirety of the Protocols in his own book Behold a Pale Horse with the caveat that any reference to “Jew” should be changed to “Illuminati” because he wasn’t antisemitic.
The book also makes reference to Kanye West, now known simply as “Ye,” as an antisemite who has not repented or couched his hate of Jews in any sort of equivocation.
I might need to make an addition to any future printing, because Ye paid for a full-page letter in the Wall Street Journal apologizing for his antisemitic outbursts and full-on embracing of Nazi iconography. Blaming his veer into fascist ideation on bipolar disorder exacerbated by an undiagnosed brain injury, Ye apologized for his “poor judgment and reckless behavior”, said he is not a Nazi and loves Jewish people, and said he is working to get better. Ye’s Nazism wasn’t his true ideology, he claimed, but a sort of manic troll of himself, where he “gravitate[d] toward the worst symbol [he] could find, the swastika” to symbolize his descent into unmedicated and untreated darkness.
To be clear, Ye’s “episode” was not just some bad jokes or outdated stereotypes. He fully wrapped himself in the ideology and symbology of the Nazi party. His admiration for Hitler and comparisons of his own ordeal in the music industry to Hitler’s “persecution” had been public for years. He had wanted to title a 2018 album Hitler before changing it to Ye. And he routinely used antisemitic tropes and stereotypes about Jewish being clannish and all-powerful, usually going through a cycle of retraction and reiteration each time.
And while his apology makes reference to a four-month breakdown, his antisemitism had increasingly come to define his career arc. From a deranged 2022 tweet calling for “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE” [sic] to his recent sharing of swastikas, SS logos, and a song called “Heil Hitler,” Ye wasn’t just a rapper dabbling in Nazism, but becoming a Nazi dabbling in music.
We’ve even been through this cycle of apology and recidivism before. Ye wrote an apology letter in December 2023 for his outbursts – an act of contrition somewhat undercut by his subsequent releasing of a song called “Heil Hitler” and buying a Super Bowl ad to shill for his new swastika t-shirts. It should also be noted that both the late 2023 and early 2026 apologies came as Ye was ramping up to release a new album.
So which is real? The antisemitism or the contrition for the antisemitism? No matter how heartfelt and sincere his apology is, you can’t say what said and do what he did without either meaning it or wanting people to think you mean it. At some point, there is no difference.
One of the questions I get asked a lot when writing about conspiracy theories is whether or not their biggest influencers actually believe them. Does David Icke really believe lizard aliens control global politics? Does Alex Jones really think the government is about to crush all opposition and declare martial law based on obscure socialist plans from the 60’s? Is this all just a canny grift meant to exploit extant fears?
It’s pretty clear that these major influencers don’t believe every aspect of what they espouse. Jones, in particular, has spent the last year turning his back on everything he once believed about government tyranny and gun ownership as the Trump administration erodes the rights of people he dislikes. But it’s also impossible to spend all day, every day soaking in this nonsense without coming to believe at least some of it. Nobody is that skilled an actor.
And ultimately, whether the major influencers believe what they’re saying doesn’t matter – their fans absolutely believe it. And their fans will pay them for more of it. When you sell hate to a mob, whether you hold that hate yourself becomes less meaningful.
So is Kanye West actually a Nazi? Does he really idolize Hitler and think Jews are an all powerful clan hellbent on world domination? Or is he just a dipshit with an untreated mental illness who is happy to court controversy to sell albums and shirts? And as both a journalist who studies anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and as a Jew, can I forgive him? Should anyone?
To be clear, Ye’s antisemitism has been extremely harmful for his career. His agent at CAA and major sponsors have dropped him. He hasn’t toured in a decade, and while his albums still routinely hit number one and get major streaming numbers, album sales aren’t the main vector for artists to make money anymore. Tours and merch are – and Ye has taken a massive hit in both. “Heil Hitler” got millions of views and listens, likely from people listening in to see if Ye had really and truly lost his mind for good. Was it worth it? Was the likely small beans money Ye made from the song worth getting the approval of some of the worst people in America? Was it worth exposing new listeners to the genocidal poison of the Nazis?
In a Vanity Fair article on Ye’s apology, featuring Ye answering some emailed questions (or at least someone writing answers on his behalf, as they sound rehearsed and rehashed), TBI expert Bennet Omalu, the subject of the film Concussion, says that a brain injury from Ye’s 2002 car crash could have caused or worsened the condition behind this impulsive behavior.
This is where my personal sympathy for West ends. Plenty of people have TBI’s or car crashes. Some of them are prominent artists. A few have had outbursts and impulsive breakdowns. But only Kanye West released a song called “Heil Hitler” and made money off selling the symbol of the 20th century’s most genocidal political movement. Whether he did it because he means it or because he was sick stops being relevant at a certain point. He did it. And he did it a lot.
Whether Kanye West is “really a Nazi” or not is unknowable. I have no idea. I doubt he really knows either. He might have ill feelings toward Jews, as many people do, but have lost the ability to keep them out of his music. But this stuff has to be in you somewhere for it to come out, it has to exist in the first place to manifest in outbursts and demented tweets. You don’t just get hit on the head and start hating Jews, at least not to this degree. No matter his personal feelings, he feels comfortable enough with his fans and the music industry thinking he’s a Nazi to continue to act like one. People who are not Nazis generally don’t want other people to think they are Nazis, so they don’t act like Nazis.
But doesn’t this just prove Ye was too in the grip of his TBI to know the difference? It’s possible, but Ye is also a celebrity with unlimited resources and many people around him who do know the difference. None of those people intervened. None of them said, “hey Ye, maybe don’t put out a song about how great Hitler was.” Maybe they were afraid of being fired and the gravy train drying up, so they just went on enabling. Maybe they believed it too.
I hope Ye gets help, leaves behind this childish Nazi fixation, and makes more great music. At the very least, I hope his apology is a sincere one, and not an album sales ploy or the work of handlers. I hope he means it, and I hope he stops with this nonsense.
But I’m not going to be surprised if he does it again. If you’re a Nazi, you’re a Nazi. And if you’re not, you don’t act like one.
Mike Rothschild 