Kanye West, a Trump supporter? As always, it's complicated

anye West has always had a testy relationship with politics and politeness. But after his widely panned onstage monologue Thursday night at his show in San Jose, where he confirmed rumors that he supported Donald Trump, he may have finally alienated his fan base.

West’s first, famous foray into American politics came in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when he said on a live TV fundraiser that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” It was a stark, sad statement that sealed his reputation as an unfiltered verbal bomb-thrower.

As his wealth and fame grew, however, that same streak of contrarianism has led him down some unusual paths that sometimes put him at odds with contemporary liberalism.

President Obama called him a “jackass” after he stage-crashed Taylor Swift at the VMAs, and West notoriously suggested that the allegations claiming Bill Cosby was a serial sexual abuser are fabricated.

He even eventually walked back the Katrina comments that had clearly rankled Bush. Fans who had cheered his candor in criticizing the president on live TV got a first glimpse of a Kanye who, in his many contradictions, seemed to always end up supporting whatever got him the most attention.

Now his knack for baiting audiences may have finally boiled over. But as always with Kanye, it’s complicated.

West admitted onstage in San Jose that he didn’t vote in this year’s election. Almost all of his musician peers, including Jay Z, Chance the Rapper and Beyoncé, turned out at rallies for Hillary Clinton.

But West escalated his controversial views by saying that he personally supported Donald Trump. To boos from the startled crowd, West said, “I told y’all I didn’t vote, right? But if I would’ve voted, I would’ve voted on Trump.”

His reasoning, to judge from the onstage cajoling, centered around Trump’s similarly unfiltered, purposefullyoffensive language and command of social media.

“There’s nonpolitical methods to speaking that I like, that I feel were very futuristic. And that style, and that method of communication, has proven that it can beat a politically correct way of communication. And I [agree] with that,” West told the shocked crowd. “I actually think that his approach was absolutely genius. Because it … worked!”

He went on to add that, in his view, America spends too much time talking about racism — “We are in a racist country, period. Do not allow people to make us talk about that so … long” — and that he felt victimized for being a black, celebrity Trump supporter.