(Photo courtesy of Variety) “Kanye purchased a Super Bowl ad to promote his website, which at the time was selling merchandise featuring the swastika.”

Collin Gallagher
Connector Staff

There was a time when Kanye West was a god. Well, maybe not the God he thinks he is, but pretty damn close. The man gave us Graduation, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, The Life of Pablo. He changed music, fashion, and the entire concept of celebrity forever.

And what is he doing now? Now he’s selling swastika T-shirts, claiming that he is a Nazi, and praising Hitler.

You don’t have to be a genius to see that something has gone horribly wrong. Kanye has always flirted with chaos and madness, but in the last few years, he’s sprinted headfirst into it, arms wide open. What we’re witnessing now is a meltdown and a full-scale moral collapse. And the worst part of it? He’s dragging his fans and everyone else along for the ride.

If you want to trace Kanye’s downfall, start at the beginning. This man has been through hell and back with the sudden death of his mother, an almost-fatal car crash, a messy and very public divorce with Kim Kardashian, and a lifelong battle with mental illness that he alternately embraces and denies.

But at some point, the switch flipped. He stopped being a tortured genius and became something much uglier. In 2022, he went from trolling the media to openly cozying up to white nationalist wretches like Nick Fuentes and Milo Yiannopoulos. He didn’t just cross the line, he completely obliterated it. When he told Alex Jones “I like Hitler,” even Jones (a man who once claimed school shootings were fake) looked uncomfortable. That’s how far gone Kanye is.

Fast forward to Super Bowl 2025. While the rest of the world was watching the game or tuning in for Kendrick Lamar’s performance, Kanye aired a bizarre, self-recorded ad filmed on his iPhone. In the 30-second spot, he lounged in a dentist’s chair, mumbling about spending all his money on “these new teeth” and directing viewers to Yeezy.com. His slurred speech and dazed expression suggested he was high on nitrous oxide. But the real shock came when visitors to the site found a $20 swastika T-shirt for sale. The backlash was swift: Shopify shut down his store, stating, “This merchant did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms, so we removed them from Shopify.” Imagine being so hateful that even corporations refuse to profit from you.

This isn’t just one guy losing his mind in public. Kanye still has a massive following, and some of them are eating this up. He’s normalizing hate speech for an entire generation of kids who grew up thinking he was a genius.

After his anti-Semitic rants, hate crimes spiked across the country. White supremacist groups literally hung banners saying, “Kanye was right.” And it’s not just the fringe perverts and weirdos. Normal people are buying into this, too. Every time Kanye spouts some insane conspiracy theory about “Jewish media control,” he pushes the Overton window further into the gutter. We have seen this before. History does not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. This particular rhyme sounds like hate speech turning into broken windows, or torch-wielding mobs in the streets.

Of course, Kanye isn’t and couldn’t be doing this alone. There’s a whole parade of bottom-feeder scum egging him on, either for clout or cash. Milo Yiannopoulos, the washed-up alt-right provocateur who once made his name as a professional troll on Breitbart News before being exiled from mainstream conservatism, called the backlash against Kanye “a sad attempt for attention.” Meanwhile, Nick Fuentes (an actual neo-Nazi!) who openly praises Hitler, denies the Holocaust, and runs his own extremist livestream America First, has basically become Kanye’s hype man. These are outright fascists, and they are using Kanye’s name to push their own disgusting agendas.

Then there’s the industry itself. Companies and platforms kept giving Kanye chances long long long after he has made it very clear what he was about. Adidas didn’t drop him until he was way too radioactive to touch. Spotify still streams his music and collects money from his streams. Social media sites still give him a megaphone. They’re all complicit in this.

Let’s get one thing straight. Mental illness doesn’t make you a Nazi. Plenty of people struggle with bipolar disorder and don’t suddenly start praising Hitler. Kanye isn’t saying this stuff because he’s sick. Kanye is saying it because he really believes in it.

And the more we pretend this is just another mental breakdown, the more we let him off the hook.

Kanye West isn’t some misunderstood genius anymore. He’s not a provocateur, an artist pushing boundaries, or even just an edgy loudmouth. He’s a hate preacher with a supposed billion-dollar brand. And if we keep on making excuses for him, if we keep on streaming his music and acting like he’s just a troubled soul who needs help, then we’re part of the problem.

Some people don’t come back from the abyss. Kanye dove headfirst, and he’s still falling. Maybe he’ll hit rock bottom, maybe he won’t. Either way, we don’t have to follow him down.