Sorry, not true: Kanye did not lose 9 million Twitter followers because he tweeted support for Trump

I’m not so sure this would have been a happy story for the left if it was true. If one-third of a man’s Twitter followers decided to unfollow him because he expressed a political opinion with which they did not agree, that would say a lot more that’s bad about them than it would that’s bad about him. But according to Twitter, it’s not true. Kanye West did not lose any significant number of followers, let along 9 million, as a result of this:

my MAGA hat is signed pic.twitter.com/DrDHJybS8V

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

To be sure, a story circulated to the contrary, but the lords of Twitter itself say it’s fake news:

“We can confirm that Kanye’s follower count is currently at approximately 27M followers. Any fluctuation that people might be seeing is an inconsistency and should be resolved soon,” a spokesperson told the Daily News Wednesday evening. At least one of the platform’s users shared a screenshot of West’s account showing a follower count of 18.8 million. But the discrepancy was not attributable to the Trump-related remarks, according to Twitter. West also tweeted a photo of a “Make America Great Again” cap with Trump’s autograph. Trump replied, writing, “Thank you Kanye, very cool!” West reactivated his account this month after deleting it last May, which could explain the mystery behind his fluctuating follower count.

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Kanye has said some idiotic things in the past, like his declaration that George W. Bush didn’t care about black people. But Kanye has never been a liberal-talking-point type of celebrity. He thinks for himself and speaks his own mind. And he doesn’t like the idea that all black people are duty-bound to think in the same way, vote in the same way and maintain constant fealty to an orthodoxy. And unlike Shania Twain, I do not expect Kanye to apologize for saying he loves the president. He seems to want to make the point to his fans that no one should be able to tell you what you can say, who you can like, who you can support or who you can align yourself with. It’s your life. It’s your choice. It’s always irritated me that Rob and I are just seen as fairly conventional conservatives, but Herman is some sort of traitor for thinking the same things we think. We’re allowed to think whatever we want because we’re white, but since Herman is black he’s obligated to operate according to the left-wing playbook, and it’s fine for people to treat him like some sort of mutant when he doesn’t. I’m glad Kanye hasn’t lost all his followers. Now how can we stop the left from continuing to lose its mind?