Morning Digest: White supremacist congressman asks, What's the matter with white supremacy?
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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar. LeadMorning Digest: White supremacist congressman asks, What's the matter with white supremacy?
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar. Leading OFF ● IA-04, IA-Sen: White supremacist Rep. Steve King picked up a Republican primary foe this week in the form of Iowa state Sen. Randy Feenstra, but if you think that'll change King's behavior, well, you don't know Steve King. We're betting, however, that you do. On Thursday, the New York Times published an interview where King actually asked, «White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?» King also responded with derision to the diversity of House Democratic caucus by saying, «You could look over there and think the Democratic Party is no country for white men.» Campaign Action A few hours later, King made a token effort to distance himself from white supremacy. Like Donald Trump, the congressman said in a statement, «Under any fair political definition, I am simply a Nationalist.» He also said of white supremacy, an ideology he had just characterized as inoffensive, «This conviction does not make me a white nationalist or a white supremacist. Once again, I reject those labels and the ideology that they define.» King also added, «I condemn anyone that supports this evil and bigoted ideology which saw in its ultimate expression the systematic murder of 6 million innocent Jewish lives.» Oh, does he now? Last August, King took a meeting with far-right Austrian Freedom Party—which has historical ties to the Nazi Party—during a trip to eastern Europe that was, gallingly, paid for by a Holocaust memorial group. We doubt King did much condemning on that trip, especially since he gave an interview to a website allied with the Freedom Party where he said, «We have a lot of diversity within the U.S. already,» and called Jewish philanthropist George Soros a force behind the so-called «Great Replacement,» a conspiracy theory prevalent on the far-right that white Europeans are being deliberately «replaced» by people of color in a scheme fomented by Jews. It seems, though, that some of King's former allies have finally gotten tired of him. Read more