I really don’t like thinking that I’m taking life lessons from Kanye West – or that any of us should. His tweets over the last week about Trump and freedom of thought and loving people aren’t any more wild than anything he’s tweeted or said in interviews over the course of his career, yet his peers are alleging that THESE are the tweets that show Kanye’s mentally ill.

Kanye’s friend (and noted extreme Trump hater) John Legend sent him a few texts in an attempt to help walk Kanye off the ledge of independent thought, which Kanye tweeted.

Kanye correctly identified Legend’s tactic:

“I love you John and I appreciate your thoughts. You bringing up my fans or my legacy is a tactic based on fear used to manipulate my free thought.”

He then tweeted that he only posted the text (since generally it’s bad form to post screenshots of texts on social media) to show that “there are people around me who disagree with me and who voice their opinion. I respect everyone’s opinion but I stand my ground.” After seeing his text on Twitter, Legend texted Kanye again – and this text was posted as well.

Legend tells him:

Think freely. Think with empathy and context too. Your words and actions have consequences. Much love.

And since you’re posting texts, let me add that I have a new single out haha

Before tweeting about Legend’s new single, Kanye noted his appreciation for dialogue.

I really appreciate this dialogue with John Legend because I'm actually very empathetic. Im still the kid from the telethon. I feel when people think of MAGA they don't think of empathy.

— ye (@kanyewest) April 26, 2018

Based on Kanye’s last tweets on the matter, it seems Legend’s intervention failed.

This is year one. We can't ad empathy to MAGA by hating. We can only ad empathy with love and time and truly hearing all sides

— ye (@kanyewest) April 26, 2018

Instead of doing what you feel
you just do what other people think you should do

— ye (@kanyewest) April 26, 2018

we are more worried about what we can lose than what we feel

— ye (@kanyewest) April 26, 2018

Couldn’t we all use a bit of Kanye’s advice here? So who’s doing the intervention?