Rapper Lil Pump, who has previously performed on Saturday Night Live with Kanye West, told his 17.3 million Instagram followers that he plans to vote to re-elect President Donald Trump. His overnight Instagram Story became a nationwide Twitter trending topic on Monday—he backed-up his comments by posting a pro-Trump meme as well overnight.
If he moves forward with his pledge, the 20-year-old (real name Gazzy Garcia) could very well cast his ballot in Florida, a critical swing state. The Miami-born SoundCloud rapper, who has said his parents are Colombian immigrants, cited taxes for his support.
“All I gotta say is: Trump 2020, bitch. Fuck I look like paying an extra 33 in tax for Biden[‘s] bitch ass, n***a? Fuck Sleepy Joe, n***a—Trump 2020 bitch,” he said on Instagram.
Joe Biden has pledged to not raise taxes on Americans who make less than $400,000 a year. According to the Washington Post‘s fact-checking, “Every substantive analysis of his plan shows that virtually all the revenue [Biden] seeks to raise would be gathered from the very wealthy or from corporations, with about half of the money coming from the top 0.1 percent and more than three-quarters from the top 1 percent of households.” According to Celebrity Net Worth, Lil Pump’s net worth is about $8 million; it’s unclear where specifically his “33” figure comes from.
Lil Pump joins a recent trend of hip-hop stars being friendly enough toward the incumbent that they’ve been presented as Trump allies in right-wing online spaces. Last week, Eric Trump posted a doctored photo of Ice Cube and 50 Cent wearing Trump hats. He deleted it after being called out for the fake news, yet 50 Cent has complained about taxes and supported Trump on social media. Ice Cube was criticized for meeting with the White House and speaking to Fox News about his social justice initiatives. Lil Pump collaborator Kanye West has spent the past four years making infamously friendly overtures toward the president, too.
Could this be part of a larger trend of young Black and brown men supporting Trump at the polls? As FiveThirtyEight wrote last week: “While older Black voters look as if they’ll vote for Biden by margins similar to Clinton’s in 2016, Trump’s support among young Black voters (18 to 44) has jumped from around 10 percent in 2016 to 21 percent in UCLA Nationscape’s polling… Notably, young Black voters don’t seem to feel as negatively about Trump as older Black Americans do. For instance, an early-July African American Research Collaborative poll of battleground states found that 35 percent of 18-to-29-year-old Black adults agreed that although they didn’t always like Trump’s policies, they liked his strong demeanor and defiance of the establishment… He has done particularly well with Black and Hispanic men, which might speak to how his campaign has actively courted them. For instance, the Republican National Convention featured a number of Black men as speakers this year.”
On social media, Lil Pump’s endorsement was met with mockery and memes.
