Continuing to experience outrage at this point is almost a herculean effort. For how does one keep up anymore with all the myriad facets of existence to be disgusted by? Yet back in September 2017, when some of us were still more capable of feeling all the feelings instead of going into a protective cocoon of numbness, Interview published a cover story branding Kim Kardashian West as the modern equivalent of Jackie Kennedy (despite the fact that she was not yet in the running for being a “bona fide” First Lady) with the headline, “America’s New First Lady.” On a side note, it was pointed that Kanye was nowhere to be found as her “Jack.” As far as comparisons go, backed by numerous “high-fashion” images, it caused many to do more than just simply raise their eyebrows, as they have in the present with Kanye’s abrupt announcement that he’ll be running for president with just four months left to the election. But then, that kind of hubris should come as no surprise from a man who has touted, among his most famous platitudes, “I love you like Kanye loves Kanye.”
Maybe the public has learned to be less bristled by the “shocking” (what with Donald Trump having taken the presidency in 2016), or maybe they just can’t address, in a non-jocular, meme-centric manner what’s really happening lest they fathom just how fucked the November election is going to be. Regardless of how “few” people end up voting for West, even the smallest fraction of a percentage is key at this moment in time for ensuring that the Orange One does not pull any of his signature stunts. Worse still, there’s even the actual possibility that Kanye might somehow come out the victor, so devoted is Kim Kardashian’s fan base that one ought not to put it past anyone who applies KKW Beauty daily to vote her husband in purely to see her as legitimate First Lady (as opposed to in name only according to Interview), as well as to watch what Kris Jenner might do inside the White House for a rousing few seasons of Keeping Up With the Kardashians in Washington, D.C. And, again, Donald Trump became president, so really, nothing is off the table anymore.
The Interview article that first prophesied this dystopian near future was conducted, strangely and expectedly, by Janet Mock, and commenced with the glowing and laudatory assessment (which Mock was sure to remind she didn’t write), “If anyone can be said to embody the American Dream, it’s Kim Kardashian West. It’s almost hard to remember a time before she and her sprawling mega-family—mother Kris Jenner and ex-stepfather, Olympic champion Caitlyn (née Bruce) Jenner, sisters Kourtney and Khloé, half-sisters Kendall and Kylie, brother Rob, and various friends, husbands, boyfriends, and exes—invented a new kind of tabloid fame, one based on access rather than aspiration.” And yet this level of heightened, unrestricted access becomes an aspiration in and of itself as legions of the Kardashian-Jenner followers seek to emulate them in any way possible, whether via the family’s many products or simply in trying to “create a following” of their own. For that currently remains the only “aspirational” American dream. To be famous because of being an “influencer” on social media.
Granted, Kardashian started out in a far more analog way than that, not just in her stint as Paris Hilton’s closet organizer and entourage component on The Simple Life, but also in her sex tape (a stunt also ripped off from Paris) with Ray J. Yes, back in the day, people actually banged–and for the internet!–in order to generate the needed scandal for tabloid fame (whereas, in the present, all it takes is one wrong statement made against the established lines of groupthink to get in the headlines or documented within the frames of a viral video).
That Kardashian has always been hyper-aware of her ultimate path speaks to the notion that she might have had grand ideas herself of one day entering the White House. After all, as she told Mock, “I usually go to Kanye [a bipolar and irascible mess] for advice about my brand, my life, my image.” Kanye undoubtedly planted the seed in her mind that the “role” of First Lady might be a good look for that image, himself having openly declared his interest in the presidency as early as August 2015, at that time saying he would aim for 2020 before later switching the projection to 2024. But here we are, a press conference with Donald Trump and a photo with Elon Musk in Yeezy later, and Kanye has determined that God himself has decided: it’s his time to be the conduit for both change and religion by running for president now.
While skeptics aren’t convinced Kanye can make the ballots in time, with deadlines having lapsed on quite a few states, shouldn’t the American people, of all people, understand about themselves by now that they will always fall for the most grandiose media ploy? And that, what’s more, so long as you have the kind of money that Donye does, regular rules simply do not apply to you in matters as frivolous as meeting deadlines and campaigning well-ahead of the election date. Nor do they apply to Kim, who is, like Trump himself, a low-budget reality star that managed to trade in on some very good luck paired with some very easily swayed acolytes.
Which is why, in 2017, some of the outrage pertaining to comparing her to 1) Jackie O or 2) any form of viable First Lady was met with such comments as, “When we start comparing Kim Kardashian to Jackie Kennedy we have officially failed as a country” and “Kim Kardashian as Jackie Kennedy is disgusting and disgraceful and an absolute travesty.” Not to mention the “star’s” overt pandering to color (which will also be an undeniable consideration in this election), appearing much darker than her natural skin tone for the shoot, which was yet another source of controversy at the time.
So now that we’re at the juncture where Interview’s Steven Klein-helmed photos showcasing Kim playing dress up as Jackie O (what, just because she sometimes goes by Kim K?) with North as her version of Caroline, where is the similar outpour of caution against comparing someone so dangerous to the survival of real politics? Instead of the kind where we’re merely watching a bad version of reality TV, except in this show, the decisions matter, affect lives on a mass scale. Or is it that America is at last truly comfortable in its nadir? In admitting to itself that celebrity is all that matters to a nation that has long ago dispensed with any form of enlightenment or erudition? After all, who has time for such quaint concepts when they’re striving for fame of the same dignity-diminishing, self-aggrandizing level as the Kardashian-Wests themselves?
