On a new episode of his show, Nick Cannon challenged the Democratic Party’s history and said he personally supports President Donald Trump.
Nick Cannon has opinions about American politics, and he is not keeping them quiet.
In a recent episode of his YouTube program Big Drive, Cannon sat down with media personality Amber Rose, who made news earlier this year after publicly aligning with the Republican Party. The conversation turned to the history of the Democratic Party, where Cannon drew a direct line between the party and its historical ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Nick Cannon on the Democratic Party’s history
Cannon pointed to the Democratic Party’s documented connections to white supremacist organizations during the Reconstruction era and through much of the early 20th century. He also cited the Republican Party’s founding role in abolishing slavery under President Abraham Lincoln as a counterpoint to how both parties are typically framed in modern political discourse.
The history Nick referenced is accurate in part. Democrats in the post-Civil War South had deep ties to the KKK and spent decades opposing racial equality legislation. One point worth clarifying: historians do not credit Democrats with founding the KKK, and the party underwent a significant ideological shift in the 1960s, when conservative Southern Democrats, known as Dixiecrats, exited the party following the passage of civil rights legislation.
Nick also invoked the thinking of W.E.B. Du Bois, the sociologist and Pan-African activist who wrote in 1956 that he saw no meaningful distinction between the two major political parties. Du Bois argued they functioned as a single entity operating under two different names, a framing Cannon appeared to endorse.
Cannon expresses support for Trump but stops short of joining either party
Despite his criticism of the Democratic Party, Cannon made clear he has no interest in registering as a Republican either. He described his political thinking as independent and said he rejects the idea of committing to either party as an institution.
He did express personal support for President Donald Trump, a notable shift from years past. Nick had previously referred to Trump as a bully following a public remark Trump made about model Heidi Klum. Whether that criticism came up in the conversation was not indicated in the clip.
Cannon’s current position seems to be this: he finds something worth acknowledging in Trump while maintaining that neither party has earned his full loyalty. He stopped well short of calling himself a Republican or encouraging others to follow any specific political path.
The episode, released Friday, circulated widely after the clip surfaced online. Cannon has not issued any additional public statements clarifying his views beyond what appeared in the segment.