it's absolutely surreal how american political strategy is developing around this nexus of black identity politics.

while the death of george floyd was clearly unnecessary, and outrage about it is justified, it's not hard to see the hand of the democratic party machinery in the unfolding of the narrative around the events. the party has fully embraced a strategy that is heavily reliant on high levels of african-american turnout in key urban areas, to offset an increasingly wandering union vote. so, it wants the election to have a specifically black narrative, to maximize black voter turnout. it's clearly taken advantage of the opportunity to do this, and no doubt intends to ride support for that specifically black narrative to the high levels of turnout it wants to drive in the black community in november.

so, if you want to try to mute or overturn that momentum, you throw a wrench in it by introducing a third candidate to entice those black identity politics voters. in a crazy scenario, that third party candidate could even capture that building momentum, and go on to win a surprise upset.

is kanye west signing up for this type of stalking horse candidacy?