MONICA SHOWALTER: Democrats’ worst nightmare about Kanye West just came true.

The shift in black opinion represents a major break in the cultural firewall that has kept black people from embracing the Republican Party and left them taken for granted by Democrats. Do Democrats pay any attention to widespread black views on gay marriage or transgenderism, for example? Do they pay any attention to whether black teenagers need jobs and how calls for minimum wage hikes shut them out of the market? Do Democrats pay any attention to how gun-free zones facilitate violence in black neighborhoods in places such as Chicago? Do they pay any attention to how illegal immigration has driven down the wages of black unskilled workers? Not in the least: The only thing they ask themselves is where else black people can go – and well, now they have their answer, because Kanye opened that door.

Kanye’s own bad experiences with self-centered, rude Democrats such as President Obama, as well as his pleasant experiences with President Trump, probably had much to do with his own epiphany, as did his concern about the sufferings of black people by violence in Chicago. But it wasn’t just a loud endorsement of President Trump that went on with his series of tweets. He not only broke the barrier to blacks supporting Republicans, but did two other things to change perceptions. He made a massive series of tweets about the importance of “love” and how he is centering his life on “love” (and talking like that takes a lot of courage), and he tweeted a lot about thinking freely. Both of these things went a long way to breaking the perception among blacks and others that Republicans are hateful and that Republicans are narrow-minded.

There’s nothing more narrow-minded than identity politics, which is the modern version of Marx’s false consciousness, which is a gussied up version of “You’re just stupid if you don’t agree with me.”