“I’m not no politician, bro!”

The 2015 MTV Video Music Awards were wrapping up, and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, which has in some respects become a bigger deal than MTV’s Video of the Year Award, was being accepted by none other than Yeezus himself: Kanye West. 

West, who was making his first “speech” on a VMA stage since his infamous incident with Taylor Swift in 2009, reached what would be approximately the halfway point of a ten-minute spiel that covered topics ranging from his own ego, to his reputation in popular culture, and his dedication to his art. 

However, in classic Kanye fashion, and in a way only the illustrious ambassador of hip-hop could pull off, he addressed the audience directly. 

“Y’all might be thinking right now, ‘I wonder, did he smoke something before he came out here?’ The answer is, ‘Yes, I rolled a little something to take the edge off.’” 

And to cap things off, West, who had for several minutes been delivering a message of how his past actions were not “about him” but “ideas”, declared, “And yes, as you probably could’ve guessed by this moment, I have decided in 2020 to run for president.” 

Suffice to say, West’s announcement was… unexpected. Twitter immediately caught fire—hundreds of different Kanye-for-president memes were created and the hashtag #Kanye2020 became the number one trend worldwide. 

Despite the initial shock and relative silliness of the thought of West running for president in five years, the question lingers: could he do it? Yes, yes he could. 

CNN reported recently on a photo West posed in with wife Kim Kardashian alongside 2016 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. If anything, the Twitter post squashes any doubt of whether West would be in the blue or red corner come 2020. 

Whether West eventually runs for the highest office in the land or not, one cannot deny the fact he is in a great position to use his celebrity and wealth to make a run if he indeed does decide to go for it. If one takes all of his qualities into account, combined with his lack of political experience, he is comparably the Donald Trump of 2020. 

I am not trying to insinuate that Kanye West and Donald Trump are similar in their ideals, but both men possess vast experience in business, occupy the top one percent of wealth in America, and are incredibly derogatory towards women. With the recent success Trump has seen in both the polls and within the GOP, there is no reason West could not do the same. 

Trump himself voiced his opinion on West’s announcement earlier this week. “He’s actually a different kind of person than people think. He’s a nice guy,” he told Rolling Stone. “I hope to run against him someday.”

Could you imagine? The 2020 presidential election with Donald Trump representing the Grand Ole Party and Kanye West speaking for the country’s left? That would make for great television.

While his potential opponent shows his support, not everyone is as enthusiastic about West running. Rosanne Barr—the comedian who starred in her own titular sitcom from 1988-1997—provided comments on the Monday edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live!

“I wish some regular people would do it, you know?” she said. She later added how she wished for “grandparents” to run for office more often. 

So the question still remains: will Kanye West run for president in 2020, or is this yet another ludicrous PR stunt to boost his ever-inflating ego and hype up his upcoming album “Swish” (originally titled “So Help Me God” until the title was changed last month)? It seems the latter is more likely at this point because of Kanye’s history of saying crazy things in order to heat up his already infinitely shining spotlight.

Whether West runs in five years or not, his declaration has certainly kept with the recent trend of random celebrities without political experience joining the presidential race—very similarly to Dr. Ben Carson and Trump. Regardless, with the significant increase in non-politicians entering the presidential race, it will be interesting to see how celebrities and “normal” people become more involved in the future of our country.