In the age of Trump and Bannon, it is okay for racists to come out from under their rocks and speak their prejudices.
Congressman Steve King of Iowa tweeted that civilization can’t be restored “with somebody else’s babies.”
He was congratulating a far-right Dutch politician who had complained about the influx of Muslims into the Netherlands.
Critics said that Mr. King echoed the principles of white nationalism, the belief that national identity is linked to the white race and its superiority to other races. Self-proclaimed white nationalists emerged as a small but vocal group during the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, celebrating his promises to crack down on illegal immigration and ban Muslims from entering the United States, as well as heralding his presidential victory as a chance to preserve white culture.
David Duke, the white nationalist and former Ku Klux Klansman who called Mr. Trump “by far the best candidate” during the campaign, celebrated Mr. King’s comments. Duke tweeted “GOD BLESS STEVE KING!!!”
It has been a long time since racism was so openly expressed by a public official. What an embarrassment Cong. King must be to the people of Iowa. I hope.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Steve King is a poster boy for the GOP of 2017. He’s a far, far, far, far, far right wing libertarian nudnik Neanderthal troglodyte regressive of monumental proportions. This is why you cannot really draw an equivalence between the GOP and the Democrats. The GOP is off the charts and deep into an infinite right wingnut black hole. King and his ilk want to return us to 1817 but with electricity, indoor plumbing and indoor toilets. I remember King being upset when a Democratic congressman described the US as a democracy. He snarled that the US was not a democracy and thank God for that. Sure, the US is a republic but a republic is also a representative democracy, it’s a form of democracy. I wish libertarians could have their own planet where they could bathe in libertarianism 24/7 and leave the rest of us alone.
Joe,
Maybe King misses the really old days, before slavery was abolished.
His remarks about “not a democracy” illustrate both his fact free ideological bias and his politics 101 stupidity. Or he’s lying on purpose. A “Federal Republic” is analogous to the hardware of a computer, it’s physical structure. “Democracy” is the software, the operating system that makes it work. You cannot have one without the other. Very basic stuff.
Race and nationalism aside, economic policies that favor the poor over the middle class for raising children, will have an effect. Progressive benefits have one effect, income limits programs have a different effect. If it is possible to raise children below an income limit with benefits, but once that income limit is reached, it is financially impossible to raise children, that is a big hole in the socio-economic strata of deciding to have children.
Reblogged this on BLOGGYWOCKY and commented:
This guy is a real piece of work. He refused to walk back his comments- he said he meant every word.
And he’s also not worried that, under the proposed TrumpCare/RyanCare plan, millions could lose their health insurance. When CNN’s Jim Acosta asked King about the possibility of millions losing health insurance, King answered “There is that possibility. But it seems as though we’re creating that as the metric through which we have to view everything else.”
So, he doesn’t seem to want to take those people into account.
The more shame on the voters in Iowa’s 5th District who elected this far right, white supremacist, unfeeling person.
It’s amazing that some people are so ignorant of their “own” culture that they don’t even know how much it wouldn’t exist without the contributions of “other” cultures.
BOOM!
I cross posted this at Oped News https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Congressman-King-of-Iowa-S-in-Best_Web_OpEds-David-Duke_Diane-Ravitch_Identity_Immigration-170313-800.html
wit this comment:
Time Is Already Running Out on Our Democracy http://portside.org/2017-02-15/time-already-running-out-our-democracy
Timothy Snyder, a Yale scholar and an authority on European political history, has spent decades studying the rise of fascist movements. With the ascension of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, Snyder sees echoes from history, and warns that the time to save America from autocracy is in short supply.
“I think things have tightened up very fast; we have at most a year to defend the republic, perhaps less,” Snyder stated in an interview with German outlet Suddeutsche Zeitung. “What happens in the next few weeks is very important.”
Snyder, whose multiple books include On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, points out that Americans must dispense with wishful thinking about institutions helping to curb Trump’s power. In fact, that misguided notion is precisely what landed us in this situation.
In the days after the election, Snyder penned a must-read Slate article that recalled historical markers from Hitler’s rise to reveal the similar path of Trump’s advance. The historian had hoped to cajole Americans out of complacency, to urge them to “find their bearings,” to remind them none of this is normal and that democracy is in the crosshairs.
https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2016/11/his_election_that_november_came_as_a_surprise.html
And After being given a chance to clarify his heavily criticized comment, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies” on CNN’s New Day, http://www.mediaite.com/online/steve-kings-tweet-was-so-bad-even-republicans-are-going-after-him/?utm_source=Mediaite+Newsletter&utm_campaign=569799ec36-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_02_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_643c243cd6-569799ec36-281919337
the Iowa congressman instead focused on “promoting the birth rate in America.” http://www.mediaite.com/online/steve-king-stuns-cuomo-with-talk-of-intermarriage-being-a-champion-of-western-civilization-and-more-on-new-day/?utm_source=Mediaite+Newsletter&utm_campaign=569799ec36-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_02_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_643c243cd6-569799ec36-281919337
A puzzled but insistent Chris Cuomo failed to get King to denounce even the “you’re either white or you’re not right” framing of the statement, with King continuing on about “intermarriage” issues.
I know I’m tedious about this subject and I apologize to those of you who had tired of me ranting about this. Once again language matters. I believe it is a mistake to use the term “white nationalism” because, whether you agree with them or not, the terms “white” and “nationalism” resonate with many Americans, the later with many who are not racist.
To repeat what I have written before, in the 1990 Louisiana senate campaign, the Louisiana Coalition against Rascism and Nazism sponsored polls and ads that drove a wedge between David Duke’s self-professed use of KKK roots with his actual Nazi heritage. We convinced many older veterans of WWII and their families, who may have had sympathy for KKK ties, that Duke represented the facism and Nazis they fought against.
The point I’m trying to make is that “nationalism” is a domestic idea; “facism” is an imported, un-American idea. People smarter than me need to come up with a vocabulary that appeals to Trump voters and makes it clear that the ideas that King, Bannon, etc. espouse do NOT have American roots. Just as Republicans have defined immigrants as “the other” and “un-American,” do we have to do the same with ideas that are imported to distort our constitutional principles and language of citizenship and governance.
the latter with many who are not racist.
Instead of “white nationalism,” the better term might have been simply “racism.”
Hillary used the word deplorable’s that was way too sophisticated for them . The average Trump voter needed a “lifeline ”
Now linguistics was not my major. But I always found simplicity works best when dealing with the simple minded.
I differ to Maxine Waters, she nailed it. She put it in language the Trump supporter would recognize by looking in the mirror .
As for King both congressman, the cornhusker and the IRA terrorist from L.I., as well as all other Trump mouthpieces there is an adjective that we can add to Waters discretion.
On a more serious note Lofgren makes a point in 2011, that the Republicans are razor focused on effective language, while Democrats are stuck in complex policy speak.