Cardi B let her Twitter followers know she wants to be a politician. Photo / Getty Images
Cardi B let her Twitter followers know she wants to be a politician. Photo / Getty Images
Cardi B has voiced a viral explainer of the 2019 government shutdown, endorsed Bernie Sanders for president and condemned the U.S. strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. A regular critic of President Donald Trump, she even threatened to move to Nigeria.
But could her foray into politics go beyond Cardi commentary? Yes, according to a series of tweets the rapper sent on Sunday.
"I think I want to be a politician," read the first. "I really love government even tho I don't agree with Government."
She had been watching war documentaries in tweet two: "How are you trying to go against a country and possibly start a war when this country lacks patriotism? I barely see people claiming they LOVE being American."
She teased the pending arrival of a video further explaining her intentions. Then, she just came right out and said it. "I do feel like if I go back to school and focus up I can be part of Congress," Cardi B tweeted, saying she has many ideas "that make sense."
"I just need a couple of years of school and I can shake the table," she wrote.
Since she rose to stardom, Cardi B has used her platform to engage with U.S. politics. The Bronx-born artist, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, summarized the 2019 government shutdown for her followers in a 58-second video that went viral and prompted Stephen Colbert to start a petition calling on Cardi to deliver the State of the Union rebuttal.
"Hey y'all," it began. "I just wanna remind you, because it's been a little bit over three weeks, okay. Trump is now ordering, as in summonsing, federal government workers to go back to work without getting paid."
I think I want to be a politician.I really love government even tho I don’t agree with Goverment
I do feel like if I go back to school and focus up I can be part of Congress.I deadass have sooo much ideas that make sense.I just need a couple of years of school and I can shake the table .
Anticipating what might come next, she continued: "Now, I don't want to hear y'all . . . talking about, 'Oh, but Obama shut down the government for 17 days.' Yeah! . . . For health care! So your grandma could check her blood pressure!"
There were also some lewd interjections about gynecology appointments, which made the video go all the more viral. Cardi B criticized the border wall showdown that had caused the government standstill. "Our country is in a hellhole right now," she said. "All for a f---ing wall."
She encouraged her followers to "take some action."
"I don't know what type of action, b----, because this is not what I do," she said. "But b----, I'm scared."
Since then, the rapper has weighed in on the 2020 presidential election, publicly endorsing Sanders and sitting down with him for a conversation on politics, the economy and racial and social justice. She asked the Vermont senator questions she solicited from her millions of Instagram followers.
Her threat to flee the country came after she toured the African continent. In a tweet after the strike that killed Soleimani, which escalated military and diplomatic tensions in the Middle East, Cardi B called the move Trump's "dumbest" to date.
"It's sad this man is putting Americans lives in danger," she wrote. " . . . I'm filing for my Nigerian citizenship."
Cardi B has made it known in many interviews that she is deeply interested in how U.S. government functions. When asked by CBS' Entertainment Tonight last year if she had ever considered a career in politics, she balked.
"No, because I feel like that's a big responsibility," she said.
"Sometimes like I feel like if I want to quit my job today, I could quit it. I'd be like, 'Oh I don't care, that's it. I'm setting up for me and my daughter,'" Cardi B told the program. "But it's like when you're like a political person, you cannot let millions of people down that voted for you, that rooted for you to make their lives better. So that's just not my thing."
In 2020, it seems she might have a new state of mind.
