Kanye West, whose better-off-ignored 2020 projects have included walking on water with Joel "Hurricane" Osteen and repeatedly inserting himself into the presidential election turmoil, has reportedly filed for the trademark to the phrase "God Save America."
Though it's hard to imagine such a thing mattering at this moment in global anguish, TMZ came through on Tuesday with a report on the filing. That report adds that the potential trademark would see the phrase slapped on new shirts, hoodies, sweater, and more. A search on the government-run tmsearch.uspto.gov confirms the news, showing the filing happened on Oct. 7.
Notably, West has already been selling a black t-shirt that carries the Jesus Is King era phrase for $40 as part of those aforementioned inserting-himself-into-the-election attempts. And on Monday, an apparent full-blown campaign ad from West appeared that—as expected—largely focused on extremely telepromptery thoughts on christianity and whatnot.
In late August, West’s campaign was accused of using deceptive methods of gathering signatures in the state of Virginia. The State Board of Elections was reported at the time to have received two signed affidavits from registered voters who said they were tricked into adding their signatures to serve as electors for West. Also, another voter said that someone reportedly involved with the campaign attempted to get her signature on a West petition—per the Washington Post—under false pretenses.
"I don't want to vote for Kanye West," one affected voter said at the time. "I only like one or two of his songs."
West, meanwhile, doesn't appear to have any issue with being widely described in the press as an attempted spoiler candidate.
