Did Hitler Invent Highways and Microphones? No Kanye, He Didn’t.

I had a million jokes lined up for this article. But I’m not going to say any of them. Kayne West is mentally ill, and I don’t feel comfortable making fun of him. I tend use to an irreverent tone in matters concerning problematic celebrities, but I have decided to turn over a new leaf.

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PSYCH.

Ohhhhhh, Kayne … Kanye, Kanye, Kanye. Honey, sweetie, baby, sugar, darling … You have sunk to a whole new low that I didn’t even think was POSSIBLE. I thought you had finished digging your own grave, and I THOUGHT that getting dropped by every fashion brand on the planet would stop you. BUT NOPE. Apparently you don’t think your grave is DEEP ENOUGH and you are DETERMINED to make it so that you will NEVER be able to claw your way out.

Uh oh … What’d Kanye do this time?

Ye had the bright idea idea to sit down for an interview with Alex Jones. That Alex Jones. You know, the far-right sack of shit who was recently ordered to pay millions of dollars to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre that he claimed didn’t happen? That guy. One would think that Kanye West would have the common sense to realize that sitting down with an alt-right pundit would be career suicide, but Kanye West is a FEW COMMON SENSE SHORT OF A DOLLAR. So he decided to sit down with ol’ A.J. for an interview. And what did they talk about? Kanye West’s newfound appreciation of Adolf Hitler.

Adolf. Hitler.

If EVER there was a man whose team you do NOT want to be on, it’s that guy. If all of human history was a school and all of its figures students, the entire student body would unilaterally agree that Adolf Hitler is the kid who deserves to be shoved into lockers, pelted with dodgeballs at gym class, and forced to eat lunch in the bathroom stall. And anyone who doesn’t think that DESERVES THE SAME TREATMENT. But apparently Kanye West is the one kid who’s gonna go “Hey, I liked the antisemitic stuff you said in class the other day. You’re really smart. Wanna go to the arcade later?” AND THAT’S BASICALLY WHAT HAPPENED.

West started his “hot for Hitler” tirade by saying “This guy that invented highways, invented the very microphone that I use as a musician, you can’t say out loud that this person ever did anything good, and I’m done with that.” He also went on to say that “every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler,” and that he was a further fan of Hitler because the despot was “born Christian.” And listen, I respect Kanye West’s commitment to “Christian love” just as much as the next ex-Catholic (which is to say I don’t), but I think that it is decidedly unchristian to order the murder of six million people.

But Kanye West also doesn’t believe that the Holocaust happened. We’ll get to that later.

So, did Hitler invent the highway and the microphone like Kanye West said?

The answer may surprise you: OF COURSE NOT.

So who invented the highway? Well, depending on your definition of a highway, that honor goes to the MESOPOTAMIANS, who invented the first paved roads in 4000 BC. The first modern road was developed by Scottish engineers Thomas Telford and John Loudon McAdam, but that was YEARS before the first road with tar on top was created. That honor goes to the Champs-Élysées in Paris in 1824. The first national road was a U.S. construction creatively named “The National Road,” and was completed in 1834. What Hitler did do was create a series of major highways in Nazi Germany. But he didn’t invent them. That’s like saying I invented scrambled eggs because I made them for breakfast this morning.

As for microphones, we don’t even know who invented them. David Edward Hughes is credited with developing the technology in England, while Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison are credited with developing the microphone in the United States in 1877. I think once again Kanye is conflating the use of something with the invention of something. Hitler used microphones to spout antisemitic vitriol in the 1930s, and Kanye West is carrying his BFF’s legacy by using microphones to do the exact same thing. The only thing that Kanye is capable of inventing is new ways to flabbergast society at large with his lobotomized antics.

So, what else did Kanye say in this interview?

In a turn of events that boggles my mind, Kanye West even managed to offend Alex Jones himself with his comments. Kanye West’s ability to create pearl-clutching moral sentiment in an otherwise morally bankrupt human being may actually be the greatest stroke of “genius” that West has performed in his entire career. Before the show cut to commercial break, Alex Jones told Kayne West that he didn’t like Nazis, to which Kanye West simply responded: “I like Nazis.” After the break, he went on to say that “we got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time.” Newsflash, Kanye: WE DON’T. And it only gets worse from here. Kanye then claimed that “zionists” were responsible for the suppression of free speech because Satan “gets inside of the zionists and makes them do evil things.”

Alex Jones was visibly uncomfortable during the interview, and considering that Alex Jones is the person who said that the grieving parents of Sandy Hook were hired actors, I didn’t think that the man was capable of being made uncomfortable by a radical point of view. He told Kanye that he’s “not on the whole Jew thing” (thanks Alex, really respectful of you to call vile antisemitic conspiracy theories the “Jew thing”), but West didn’t seem to care. Ye went on to say, “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis,” and complimented Hitler’s “cool outfit” before launching into a Holocaust-denying tirade in which he said Hitler “didn’t kill six million Jews. That’s just factually incorrect.”

*deep breath*

KANYE THOSE WORDS THAT YOU HEAR IN YOUR MIND ARE NOT “FACTS.” THOSE ARE CALLED “THOUGHTS.” AND WE’D LIKE IT IF YOU KEPT YOUR THOUGHTS TO YOURSELF.

(featured image: Oliver Contreras – Pool / Getty Images)