Topic: CNSNews.com
When last we left off, CNSNews.com had fully embraced Kanye West for his bromance with Donald Trump. It continued to crank out the Kanye praise and stenography later in 2018:
- Kanye West: 'Blacks Are Supposed to Have Monolithic Thought...We Can Only Be Democrats'
- Kanye West to Bring Football Hall of Famer Jim Brown to White House
- Trump During Kanye West’s Visit: ‘I’m Open-Minded’ on Stop-and-Frisk
- Kanye West: ‘I Was Programmed to Think From a Victimized Mentality - a Welfare Mentality’
- Ben Shapiro: Kanye’s Message to Trump at WH ‘Was Wild,’ But ‘Important for the Culture’
- Kanye West on Trump MAGA Hat: It Means 'People Can't Tell Me What to Do Because I'm Black'
When CNN panelists in October 2018 criticized West's embrace of Trump as "what happens when Negroes don’t read," CNS was not only there to document the atrocity, it even called in Herschel Walker to criticize it (which, in retrospect, may not have been the best idea, though at the time Walker was being built up by right-wing media like CNS to be a political candidate). CNS columnist came out in force to defend West:
- Allen West complained not only about this but also that "Even Saturday Night Live could not resist in making the Kanye West Oval Office visit the brunt of its jokes" and that any criticism of Kanye is just part of "the tyranny of collectivism."
- David Limbaugh insisted that "Democrats have no solutions anymore and thus are reduced to crass, divisive identity politics ... This explains why they demonize Kanye West and any other black person who dares to stray from the prescribed liberal dogma."
By 2019, CNS was giving space to West's more esoteric ideas, like a July 2019 piece by Craig Bannister headlined "Kanye West Designing 'Star Wars'-Themed 'Living Spaces for the Homeless'." In September of that year, Michael Morris was touting West's then-wife, Kim Kardashian, saying that Kanye "had an amazing evolution of being born again and being saved by Christ." More pontification was given a platform in an October 2019 article: "Songwriter and record producer Kanye West said his parents fought for the right to express their opinion, not the right to vote for politicians the “white liberals” said blacks are “supposed to vote for.” West added that Democrats have pushed policies that compel blacks to abort their children."
In November 2019, managing editor Michael W. Chapman cheered how "Evangelical leader Franklin Graham praised singer/songwriter Kanye West for using his talent to 'point thousands of people to Jesus Christ,' especially young people, and urged Christians to pray for West, stressing that liberals will oppose him and the Devil will try to discourage and 'destroy him.'"A couple weeks later, Melanie Arter served up related pontification:
Rapper Kanye West joined Pastor Joel Osteen’s congregation on Sunday and gave his testimony on how God had a calling on his life that he had been ignoring for a long time, and that even in his lowest moments, God was sending him visions and inspiring him.
“I know that God’s been calling me for a long time, and the devil’s been distracting me for a long time. And when I was in one of my low points, God was there with me and sending me visions and inspiring me, and I remember sitting in the hospital at UCLA after having a mental breakdown, and there’s documentations of me drawing a church and saying—writing ‘start a church in the middle of Calabasas,’ and even after that, I went and made the Life of Pablo album,” he said.
In January 2020, Chapman returned to cheer that "During a press conference about the upcoming Super Bowl, Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark wore a sweatshirt displaying a photograph of President Donald Trump and musician Kanye West. When asked about his sweatshirt at the Jan. 24 press conference, Clark said, 'Never forget man! Y'all know the moment when Donald Trump met Kanye, a very historical moment in our history!'"
In April 2020, CNS published a column by its favorite dishonest Catholic, Bill Donohue, headlined "Kanye's Christian Rebirth Really Does Seem Genuine":
He says he has given his life to Christ, crediting Jesus as his "anchor" and saying he is "definitely born again." He recognizes that there are those who have done things "with the word of Christ that were bad," but, he hastens to add, "that's not going to stop my love for Christ. I'm going to keep on expressing what God has done for my life."
Jesus, West says, has been a source of "healing," noting that his succumbing to alcohol—he wound up drinking Grey Goose in the morning—was the work of the devil. He began rebounding the day he said, "Devil, you're not going to beat me today." He says he hasn't had a drink since.
[...]
Perhaps the most surprisingly astute observation West made—it is shared by many devout Catholics and evangelicals—is his comment on surrender.
"Now all of that energy and that creativity that I have channeled and put on track comes from me surrendering to God and saying that everything is in God's will."
That is the voice of a mature Christian.
Kanye West is his own man. He is also a man at home with the Creator. He should be welcomed, not disparaged, for going against the grain of the dominant culture.
West continued saying more right-wing-friendly things for which CNS served as a dutiful stenographer in the runup to the 2020 presidential election:
- Kanye West: Saying that ‘The Black Vote Is Democratic Is a Form of Racism and White Supremacy’
- Kanye West Rejects Abortion: ‘I Almost Killed My Daughter’
- Kanye West: Abortion Is ‘Black Genocide’
- Kanye West: ‘With Abortion Culture’ and Black Babies Aborted, ‘We are in Genocide’
These were joined by a November 2020 column by James Ensor parroting right-wing support for West's stated position on abortion:
Kanye West’s recent tearful call for the black community to reject abortion as child-killing gives us hope that a wave of black Americans will flood into the pro-life movement. If so, it means the end of abortion as a business!
West’s plea erupted from a contrite heart. It was public and loud. Recalling the pressure he put on his pregnant wife, he shouted, “I almost killed my daughter!” His own words hit him and he broke down weeping, “I almost killed my daughter.” The raucous crowd went silent.
When painful truths rise up on the tears of repentance like this, it tends to crash through all our defenses. In that silence, I suspect hearts and minds were undergoing radical transformation regarding abortion.
Ensor went on to repeat a right-wing myth about the locations of abortion clinics in black neighborhoods and falsely equated Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger's onetime support for eugenics to "white supremacy."
CNS didn't reference West again until last month. We'll get into that soon.
