Rapper Kanye West drew shocked reactions on Thursday when he went on a pro-Hitler rant during an appearance on Alex Jones' InfoWars show.
Even though West has made multiple boldly anti-Semitic remarks in the past, he seemed to take even Alex Jones aback when he said that he sees "good things about Hitler" and encouraged people to stop demonizing Nazis.
Many observers posted shocked reactions on Twitter and warned that West's rants should not be dismissed as just another celebrity meltdown.
"We're all gawking at Kanye saying he sees 'good things about Hitler' but I can't escape the absolute dread that people who know no better and look up to this man and stumble upon this interview will be moved, even on the margins, by him," wrote Politico reporter Sam Stein. "This is not a clown show. It's dangerous."
NBC News reporter Ben Collins made a similar argument and warned about the dangers of West having the ears of former President Donald Trump, who is currently the frontrunner to be the Republican Party's nominee in 2024.
"Honestly I'm not sure what to do here," he wrote. "I cannot tell you how unbelievably antisemitic this Kanye West Infowars interview is. This is straight up, old fashioned Naziism being mainstreamed from celebrities who are in the ear of the last U.S. president."
Jeet Heer, a progressive journalist at The Nation, also noticed that West's rant went beyond his previous stated hatred of Jews and into something even darker.
"Kanye's new interview is well beyond even antisemitism," he wrote. "It's pure Nazism."
This sentiment was echoed by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), who has regularly called on more lawmakers to speak out against the mainstreaming of anti-Semitism.
"This is Nazism," he wrote. "When are we going to say ENOUGH?"
And Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill said that people needed to stop seeing West as a man struggling with mental illness and to understand that he has simply become an advocate of evil.
"Ye is a terrible person," he wrote. "He’s not misunderstood. This isn’t just mental illness. He's trash."
