It’s not hard to understand why the rapper Ye — born Kanye West — signaling his support for Donald Trump would be so appealing to Republicans. For years, the party has struggled to bolster its standing with Black voters and its position in popular culture. Here was one of the most popular musicians in the world, first appearing with president-elect Trump in Trump Tower and, in 2018, with Trump in the Oval Office. A beachhead, at long last, had been established.

At best it augured a potential new political landscape; at worst, it gave the party a way to deflect questions about the palatability of Trump’s and the party’s positions on issues related to race. After Ye explicitly embraced Trump’s presidency, Trump repeatedly claimed that his standing with Black voters had surged, which it hadn’t. But instead of having to pick out individual Black attendees at his events, the president who relied on cherry-picking as a rhetorical tool now had an ally everyone would recognize — an ally a lot of people liked.

Over the past few weeks, that has changed. Ye’s increasingly vocal espousal of anti-Jewish rhetoric has triggered a scramble within the GOP, exacerbated by Ye’s palling around with virulent antisemite Nick Fuentes which culminated in his bringing Fuentes to a much-discussed dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Much of the attention from that dinner focused on Fuentes, helping delay the party’s reckoning with what Ye himself had said. ...