Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, has broken down the fourth wall of Republicanism, which states: never, ever, under any circumstances go full white nationalist.
Never.
Once the hatred, bigotry, and racism seeps out, it becomes hard to try and put it back in the can. It’s not like anyone hasn’t known that King was a white nationalist as he preached the tenets of white people being the greatest race on the earth. He also was against race mixing and believed that law enforcement officers could tell an undocumented immigrant by looking at their clothes and what kind of accent they have.
King isn’t new to this white nationalism life, he’s true to it. In fact, the New York Times reported an entire timeline dating back to 2005 charting his white nationalist rhetoric, which can be read here.
The wildest part of all of this hoopla and newfound interest in King’s white nationalist rhetoric that he’s been spouting for over 10 years, is that the comment that sparked it all, was probably his most lame.
“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?” King said in an interview with the New York Times published last week.
Now King has been pulled from all of his Congressional committees and the GOP is allegedly working behind the scenes to encourage him to resign. Look, everyone knows who King is as he’s been blatantly clear about his feelings on non-white people. Acting as if his white nationalism is something new is absurd. Republicans are basically distancing themselves from someone who has gone full white nationalist, despite the fact that King has gone unchecked by his constituents for years. Steve King simply forgot to take off his KKK hood and House Republicans want to act as if they didn’t give him the secret handshake at all of the Klan meetings.
On Tuesday King voted “yes” on a resolution that disapproves of his white supremacy and white nationalism comment. Basically, he voted against the statements he’s made.
“I agree with the language in it,” he said urging his colleagues to vote for the resolution, KCCI reports.
“I’m putting up a yes on the board here. What you say here is right and it’s true and it’s just,” he said.
This all comes after King attempted to defend his recent comments—which were a lot like his past comments that had gone unchecked. But it’s all bullshit. The only thing that this King matter has proven is that the GOP only allows 10 years of unfettered white nationalism until they finally decide to do something about it.
Or, as Elie Mystal said this week:
It’s relatively easy to get white people to agree that you shouldn’t sound racist. It is much harder to get white people to agree they shouldn’t be racist.