Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has gained notoriety for his often contentious — and, occasionally, almost overtly racist — comments about immigration and the demographics of the United States. On Sunday, in a tweet about the nationalist Dutch politician Geert Wilders, King again appears to have crossed the line.
“Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny,” King wrote. “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”
The formulation of “our” civilization being at risk from “somebody else’s babies” is a deliberate suggestion that American civilization is threatened by unnamed “others” — almost certainly a reference to non-Westerners. The idea that national identity and racial identity overlap entirely is the crux of white nationalism; King’s formulation above toes close to that line, if it doesn’t cross. American culture, of course, was formed in part over the past two centuries by the assimilation of immigrants from a broad range of nations — first mostly European but later a broader diaspora. Iowa, the state King represents, remains one of the most homogeneously white in the United States.
Calling Steve King “almost overtly racist” is like saying it gets a little chilly at the South Pole. This is his regular gig.
You have to wonder if he’s doing this just to represent a particular mind-set in his district (although I can say from my own experience that the people and the part of the country he represents are by and large not at all like him or think this way) or that he’s just a fascist and a racist by his own stunted growth and stupidity. The reason he’s re-elected time and time again is because of inertia and a lack of competition.
He is mean spirited man who would tell you what a good Christian he is.