A major pop artist adopted MAGA as a transgressive style statement

Evidence

Two weeks after his breakdown, Kanye emerged at Trump Tower for a private meeting and photo op with the president-elect. Trump told reporters, “We discussed life.” Over the next two years, Kanye cemented his loyalty to Trump, frequently sporting a red MAGA cap personally signed by the president. On his 2018 track “Ye vs. the People,” he rapped, “Make America Great Again had a negative reception / I took it, wore it, rocked it, gave it a new direction.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 441

Categorization

• XREF: Kanye’s appropriation of MAGA to shock his liberal audience is the counterculture’s taboo-breaking impulse aimed at the culture that once embraced him — a reversal worth pairing with the counter-counterculture chapters.