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by Benjy Sarlin
WASHINGTON – The House overwhelmingly passed a resolution that disapproves on Tuesday the racist remarks of Rep. Steve King, R -Iowa, in a wave of bipartisan denunciation.
The resolution, presented by the majority representative of the Whip, James Clyburn, DS.C, states that "the House of Representatives once again rejects white nationalism and white supremacy as hateful expressions of". intolerance that is at odds with the values that define the people of the United States. "
The measure was supported by all Republicans and Democrats, with the exception of those who advocated formal censorship, which is a harder punishment. 19659009] A rare and symbolic reprimand came the day after King King's effective disavowal of the Republican President, in response to a recent New York Times interview in which he demanded: "White Nationalization, White Supremacy and Western Civilization – Offensive" ? "
Republicans removed King from his position on the committee earlier this week – an unusual maneuver that drastically reduces his role in Congress – as House Leader, Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Leader of the majority in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
President Donald Trump, who has often criticized his own attacks on immigrants and Muslims, did not speak.
King, who had stated that his remarks to the Times had been made. out of context, supported the passing of the resolution that did not directly condemn his behavior, but mentioned his remarks alongside murderous hate crimes such as the attack on the Pittsburgh Synagogue in 2018 and the shooting of the 39; Charleston Church in 2015.
"I" I add a "yes" to the table here because what you say is true and it's true and it's just ", he said during a speech in front of the vote.
As many Republicans have pointed out in their King convictions, however, the Times' interview was only the last of a long series of incidents in which the congressman had aligned himself with white nationalist and anti-Semitic personalities and had echoed their racist rhetoric.
Far from a gadget in the party, King was a man, and until recently he was an influential figure on the right, especially ier in the field of immigration policy.
His power was magnified by his role as a valuable support within the first presidential caucuses of Iowa. He chaired the presidential race of Senator Ted Cruz in 2016, as well as the 2018 re-election campaign of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. Cruz condemned his remarks this week and Reynolds announced that she would not support it in 2020 against a main opponent.
But as King's extremism became more apparent, members of his party began to distance themselves in the months leading up to Tuesday's vote. 19659009] In October, Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, then chairman of the House GOP's campaign wing, denounced King just before the midterm elections and called on Republicans to "stand up against white supremacy and hatred in all its forms ". King survived little by far in a deep red district.
At the time, the Iowa legislature was facing scrutiny for endorsing a white nationalist mayoral candidate in Toronto, appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast, tweeting a quote from A British Holocaust. denialist and self-proclaimed "Nazi sympathizer", praising an anti-immigration party founded in Austria by a former Nazi officer and comparing them to the Republican party, and granting an interview to a far-right media in which he urged Germans overcome their "Nazi guilt" and re-embrace nationalism.
Often, his words echoed the tropes of common white nationalists. In 2017, he tweeted "we can not restore our civilization with the babies of someone else" while praising a Dutch anti-immigrant politician, Geert Wilders, who advocated the prohibition of mosques and the Koran. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke retweeted the comments by adding "GOD BLESS STEVE KING!"
Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan has distanced himself from King's tweets via his spokesman. But despite increasing attention to its racist bend, led by the Huffington Post but joined by conservative media, the House leadership has taken no punitive action until McCarthy, who succeeded Ryan as a senior Republican, announced that he would be stripped of his seats on the committee.
