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.
Consider this tweet from just last September.
@FraukePetry Wishing you successful vote. Cultural suicide by demographic transformation must end. @geertwilderspvv pic.twitter.com/Kp6uieaMDG
— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) September 18, 2016
“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.
