Many were caught off guard when Kanye West announced his plans to run for the presidency.
Far fewer were surprised when word got out that Kanye’s family is deeply concerned about his mental health, and they see his political ambitions as yet another indication that he’s very unwell.
On Sunday, Kanye held a campaign rally that quickly devolved into a scattershot tirade with a number of surprising targets.
At one point, West railed against Harriet Tubman, alleging that the revered abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor “never actually freed the slaves, she just had them work for other white people.”
Veering wildly from one topic to the next, Kanye also made some controversial comments on the subject of abortion.
He said that it would remain legal under his administration, but that he would provide financial incentives to expectant mothers in hopes of discouraging them from terminating their pregnancies.
Specifically, “everybody that has a baby gets a million dollars,” West said.
He then added that he and wife Kim Kardashian considered aborting their first child, North West.
"She was crying… and for one month and two months and three months, we talked about her not having this child. She had the pills in her hand," the rapper recalled.
West added he changed his mind on the matter after speaking directly with God.
"God said, ‘If you f— with my vision I’m gonna f— with yours," Kanye said of the divine encounter he experienced in a Paris apartment.
"And I called my wife and she said, ‘We’re gonna have this baby,’ and I said ‘We’re gonna have this child.’"
At one point, Kanye stated that his wife had no idea he was planning to go public with that account, and she "might divorce [him]" as a result of his remarks.
Needless to say, many of Kanye’s comments seemed ill-considered at best and potentially dangerous, at worst.
Shortly after the rapper announced his campaign, there were reports that Kim was considering a trial separation as a result of her unwillingness to stand by his side during what she feels is a public act of self-destruction.
For a while it looked as though Kanye had suspended his campaign, possibly as a result of Kim’s concerns.
However, Sunday’s rally has confirmed that West is still interested in seeking office, and now, TMZ is reporting that the Kardashians feel Kanye "is in desperate need of professional help and is in the middle of a serious bipolar episode."
Insiders say the family is primarily concerned with Kanye’s mental health, but they’re also worried about how his latest stunt might affect his business ventures.
West was recently named a billionaire by Forbes, and his earnings are largely dependent on partnerships with Adidas, the Gap, and other companies that are likely to cut ties with Kanye if he continues making wildly controversial statements in public.
Kim is reportedly unconcerned about her own business interests, as "their money is separate and her and Kanye’s brands are distinguishable."
Meanwhile, a number of prominent public figures have been bashing Kanye on social media, including singer Trey Songz, who went off on West on Instagram:
"Ye you in the way of progress foreal, how you turn this goofy from who you were? I’m so confused, whoever got his number need to call him," Songz wrote.
The Kardashians are reportedly planning a sort of informal intervention in which they’ll encourage Kanye to end his campaign, but they’ll make no mention of the fact that he’s basically become a national punchline.
Instead, they’ll argue that he’s serving as "a distraction to what is a very important election."
Of course, some conspiracy theorists believe Kanye knows that, and he’s running with the hope of luring Dem-leaning voters away from Joe Biden, thus aiding Donald Trump’s re-election efforts.
But that seems to be an over-analysis of the situation.
The more likely explanation is that we’re watching a very unwell man in the midst of a very public meltdown.
Here’s hoping Kanye gets whatever kind of help he needs as soon as possible.