Why Republicans Are Suddenly Outraged Over Steve King’s Racism

For years it has been no secret that Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is an outright racist.  Likewise, it has been no secret that King has been vocally stating what has been the Republican Party's unspoken agenda: harm minorities of every sort while helping the truly wealthy.  Yet, suddenly congressional Republicans are feigning shock at King's behavior and open statement of the GOP's racism.  Now, King has been stripped of committee assignments and is facing censure. What happened?  A column in the Washington Post offers an answer: King explicitly said what has been the Party's agenda behind dissembling smoke screens and insincere denials.  Here are column highlights:

Republicans are shocked, shocked , to learn that Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is a dyed-in-the-wool racist. Also , that snow is cold, the ocean is wet and the sky is often blue.

The clamor of GOP voices denouncing King’s latest racist eruption is more amusing than inspiring. Where have his Republican colleagues been all these years? Surely the “party of Lincoln” is aware that race has been the most divisive issue in our national history. Surely Republicans were aware of King’s toxic views, which he makes no attempt to hide. Why such an uproar now?

Perhaps King’s newly outraged critics were waiting for him to finally spell it out in language that even the “party of Trump” cannot ignore. Which he did.

In a New York Times profile last week, King expounded on his hard-line anti-immigrant views, which are the only thing that has distinguished him, or undistinguished him, in an otherwise mediocre congressional career. He boasted of having once told President Trump that “I market-tested your immigration policy for 14 years, and that ought to be worth something.”

King told the Times: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”

We have seen, in subsequent days, that the open embrace of white supremacy is a bridge too far for many Republicans. That’s what they say, at least. I’ll believe them when they make clear — with actions, not just words — that racists such as King are unwelcome in the party’s ranks.

After the Times piece was published, King quickly issued a statement seeking to distance himself from white nationalism and white supremacy . . . . But then he went on to defend that very ideology in the euphemistic language — word salad about nationalism and Western “values” — that white supremacists use in polite company.

[H]is rhetoric and his associations make clear that his real aim is keeping out the “wrong” kind of people — Latinos, Muslims, anyone who doesn’t fit into his warped, ahistorical, racist vision of the nation’s heritage. . . . He proposed a border wall before Trump did.

As the Times noted in its profile, King has supported political figures abroad who have anti-Semitic leanings and neo-Nazi ties.

Following the Times profile, we’ve heard stirring denunciations from outraged and embarrassed Republicans. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) was righteously eloquent on the subject. In a Post op-ed, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) challenged his colleagues: “Some in our party wonder why Republicans are constantly accused of racism — it is because of our silence when things like this are said.” On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) promised that “action will be taken” against King. . . .

You don’t want to be called racists, Republicans? Then stop letting bigots such as King and Trump define the party’s policies. I’ll believe stirring GOP words about diversity when they are backed up by votes.

White Supremacists Celebrate Midterms as a Victory

Despite the fact that Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives in last week's midterm elections, white supremacists are puffing themselves up and claiming that they were the real victors.  Why?  Because what for years had been becoming an largely unspoken plank of the GOP agenda is now overt under Donald Trump: racists and white supremacists are openly welcome in the Republican Party.  (In Virginia, defeated GOP candidate Corey Stewart ran on a openly racist platform).  This reality, combined with the fact that Trump openly displays his racism and the re-election of some of the most racist GOP members of Congress - e.g.. Steve King - has white supremacists cheering.  The big question and fear is whether or not they will put their bigotry into action against non-whites.  A piece in CNN looks at this cancer on America.  Here are article highlights:

White supremacists are saying they were winners in last week's midterm elections.

They were already emboldened by the language used by President Donald Trump and senior members of his administration -- words like "nationalist" and "invasion" that have hateful dual meanings -- according to a review of sites frequented by white supremacists. And they saw Tuesday's results as a victory for white America with what they believe will be progress toward a border wall, an end to DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, and birthright citizenship.
 Memes and commentary on the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer site bashed nonwhite candidates who did not win, as well as losses by Republicans not seen as Trump loyalists.

"This changed history. It cleared away any of the remaining fog of confusion about what exactly we are dealing with in this country," Daily Stormer founder and publisher Andrew Anglin wrote.
 Anglin was buoyed by the win of Rep. Steve King in Iowa, even after King was pilloried for meeting with a far-right Austrian group linked to Nazis and retweeting an avowed Nazi sympathizer. King, a Republican, says he was unaware of the Nazi links in both those instances, but he has used racially charged and anti-immigrant rhetoric for years.
 King still won with 50.6% of the vote in Iowa's deeply conservative 4th Congressional District. In Illinois, Arthur Jones, a self-declared Holocaust denier and former leader of the American Nazi Party tallied almost 56,000 votes, more than a quarter of the total, standing for the GOP in Illinois' 3rd Congressional District. "Steve King won," Anglin wrote. "If last night was a referendum on Steve King's white nationalism, as the Democrats were trying to frame it, then white nationalism won."

On the campaign trail for Sen. Ted Cruz fighting for re-election in Texas, Trump declared, "I'm a nationalist, OK? I'm a nationalist."   A commenter on the 4chan bulletin board joked Trump was winking at them.

Earlier, another poster declared Trump was venerated by white supremacists: "What Dems, all leftists and pundits do not understand is that TRUMP is patriots' and Western/American Heritage's CHAMPION." To Alcindor, Trump repeated two more times how racist the question was. But he also never flatly denounced white supremacists. They were overjoyed, calling the press conference "glorious," and "beautiful" on 4chan, with one commenter writing: "I am honestly in awe of this man as a leader." "It doesn't take an overt slur for these individuals to basically become emboldened and to recognize and be excited by policies that they see would further their goals," said Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "When they hear [Trump] the President say things like, 'I'm not a racist,' they turn around amongst themselves and say, 'He just has to say that for practical reasons,' 'he just has to say that basically to get himself cover, to do the things that we want him to do,'" Hankes says. What is not clear is if any extremists will follow words with violence, as allegedly happened with Robert Bowers, who has pleaded not guilty to killing 11 people at a synagogue late last month, allegedly because he believed Jews were helping "invaders."

On places like 4chan, false talk of the migrant caravan as "invaders" has taken over on some of the message boards and become a popular meme topic. Analysts say "the browning of America" where whites become a minority is what the white supremacists fear most. There are threads with memes containing photos doctored to look like people breaking down walls at the US border with Mexico. There are jokes about how the traditional rush of Black Friday shoppers is nothing compared to what would happen next. In another thread on 4chan, commentators speculate about how many people would be shot as they come over the border. The thread appeared to reference Trump's comment that US troops on the border could fire on someone in the migrant caravan if the person threw rocks or stones. "All of them," one poster wrote of a possible casualty count. "Not enough," said another.
 The administration's approach to immigration in particular has "electrified" many racists, Hankes said, "to the point where they're begging their followers to go out and find ways to put Republicans in office." "They believe it will be easier for these policies to sail through," he said. "And these are things that they think are essential for creating a white ethno-state." Perhaps this election did energize white nationalists to vote, if they thought they had a champion in government. But there is also the fear -- and the example -- of men taking matters into their own violent hands.
 Bowers, the accused synagogue killer, echoed Trump talking points when he wrote on the free-speech forum Gab that "I have noticed a change in people saying 'illegals' that now say 'invaders'." The post, made six days before the shooting, continued, "I like this."

The time has come for my Republican "friends" to decide whether they are racists or not.  They cannot support a racist party any longer and then pretend that they are not complicit in its ugly agenda.  

GOP's Steve King Confirm's He's a White Supremacist

Another thing that should surprise no one is the reality that Congressman Steve King is a white supremacists.  He has been making thinly veiled racist comments for years and his hatred of non-whites was on display again over the weekend when he said  "We can’t restore our civilization [white America] with somebody else’s babies.”  Like so many in the today's GOP, King is utterly unable and unwilling to recognize the common humanity of others of other skin colors, faiths, sexual orientations, and/or  national origin.  Indeed, the Neo-Nazi site, Daily Stormer, was lauding King's comments and urging that he be made Speaker of the House of Representatives.  Talking Points Memo looks at King's history of outright racism:

Today people are apparently finding out and being terribly surprised that Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is a white nationalist and racist and has been that more or less openly for years. Before yesterday's paean to "culture and demographics", Steve King was saying that for every Dreamer who's a valedictorian there are a hundred running drugs. The list of similar statements is all but endless.

We've been on the King beat for years. You can go through our archives and find dozens of offensive, stupid and frequently outright racist comments from King. But there's something more specific about King. King frequently speaks in the language of white nationalists and neo-Nazis who speak of "white genocide" and America being overrun by non-whites.

"Cultural suicide by demographic transformation"—This is literally the kind of talk you can read from Richard Spencer and Stormfront.org any day of the week. Note also that King is there with Wilders, the rightist, racist Dutch member of parliament and Frauke Petry, the rightist, nationalist leader of Germany's Alternative for Germany party. These are the parties Trump's top advisor Steve Bannon wants to help loft to power and ally with in a rightist, north Atlantic political movement.

This isn't just one "controversial" member of Congress. King is part of American white nationalist, far-right political movement. That's not a softer way to say "racist." He's also a racist. But there are plenty of racists who have more conventional politics. He's part of a movement. So is Bannon. So is Trump.