“As soon as they like you, make ‘em unlike you,” declared Kanye in 2013. Many of us were still taking pleasure in this celebrity-contrarian game then, myself included. But it’s 2018, and nobody wants to play. The world feels dangerous enough without watching a man flirt with immolation for his own amusement. Maybe playing with fire is harder and hotter when people’s lives are being ruined by a faithless man’s whims by the hour, and maybe we are watching Kanye getting disfigured by these flames. Trump debases everyone he touches, and his latest convert is also his latest victim.

The irony is that none of his recent behavior necessarily breaks new ground for Kanye. Remember when he asked us to imagine how Chris Brown felt, with Rihanna’s horribly beaten face fresh in the public imagination? Or when a mere two years ago he tweeted that Bill Cosby was innocent? Fans rolled their eyes and rubbed their temples and waited for him to shut up. But we didn’t have a madman in the White House then, and it all seemed bearable as long as he eventually stopped.

We were indulging him, in part, because of our unwavering belief (and his) that he is a Genius. Every disheartening development during the last few weeks—the MAGA hat, the TMZ interview, the doubling down in the face of heartfelt pleas from those close to him—is a devotional performed at the altar of genius. Kanye has placed himself in a lineage of unconquerable men: Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Howard Hughes, Michael Jordan, Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein. This idea has fueled him and absolved him in the past, but it is killing him now.

Genius is by nature troubled and unmanageable. “Name one genius who ain’t crazy,” Kanye demanded on The Life of Pablo’s “Feedback.” Genius is the only yardstick by which he measures himself—“I’m doing pretty good as far as geniuses go,” he insisted on Graduation’s “Barry Bonds.” But maybe geniuses make for bad role models.

A genius is by definition inexorable. Kanye has insisted that he remains in control of this wild narrative, but he has been elbowed offstage by a series of passionate critics, from T.I. to John Legend to TMZ producer Van Lathan. Watching him stand there blinking as Lathan dressed him down, I saw someone shoved to the kids’ table of his own debate, struggling and failing to reassert dominance over the conversation. Naturally, Kanye took to Twitter shortly after the bizarre appearance to defend his right to present “new ideas,” but nothing he said did much to shift the tide of reaction. He has crossed over the final cultural Rubicon, where what he thinks he’s doing and saying is no longer relevant to its reception. He stands completely outside of the conversation he has tried to start, and every time he opens his mouth he looks lonelier.

But he can’t stop, because geniuses don’t stop. What would Steve Jobs have been if he never returned, victorious, from his ignominious exile to Give The People iPods? If West is a genius, then no matter what’s on his mind, he is Onto Something.

A genius can only be misunderstood. A genius can never be wrong, and can only assimilate criticism as “opposition.” A genius is always male—not just a male, but a Great Man, as “genius” has always been more bellow of patriarchal conquest than any kind of descriptor.

Not coincidentally, capitalism loves genius. After all, genius is productive. We locate genius within people, a fixed quality, which makes it a matter of possession and ownership, much like a patent. Feed genius enough money, give it enough space and grant it endless permission, and it will hum along nicely for you until it overheats and breaks down and you can scrap it quietly. Already this morning, there were some signs that is next for Kanye: Adidas, which makes Yeezys, opened lower on the stock market, and the CEO referred ominously to “conversations” he was intending to have with his brand ambassador.