Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:16 pm
*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*
There seems to be a belief among many Americans that the popularity and mainstreaming of blatant racism and xenophobia among Republicans is the result of Donald Trump. But as this column scolds ad nauseam, racism and xenophobia has roiled in conservative ranks for decades. The only contribution a big-time wrestling celebrity could have made is bringing racism, specifically white supremacy, into the mainstream as a valid campaign issue. One of the Republicans that set the standard for Trump’s nativism as policy is Iowa congressional representative Steve King and although he never had the national forum Trump now enjoys, the racist King is just as bigoted, just as racist, and now is just as mainstream as his party’s standard bearer.
Maybe it was a ploy to best Donald Trump’s blatant racism, or more likely he just feels the time is right to reveal his adoration for Eruopean-style Aryan fascism, but Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) went public as a bonafide white supremacist last week. And, this is really important: King isn’t just openly joining the Trump nationalism parade, he issued a tweet with him posing with a pair of renowned European fascist leaders with a phrase that would warm Adolf Hitler’s Aryan heart – “Cultural suicide by demographic transformation must end.” Demographic transformation is code for a diverse cultural society like America’s; something King says “must end.”
The phrase is a favorite among white supremacists in Europe and more recently in conservative America. It is the primary dogma driving “white nationalist and fascist” opposition to all people of color, all non-Aryan immigrants, and all non-Christians the Aryans consider a threat to the preservation of white purity. Attached to King’s tweet was a photo of him standing next to Frauke Petry and Geert Wilders; both notorious European fascists and Aryan leaders. Included in Kings’ tweet, was his support for Petry’s upcoming election as a “far right anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim extremist; Petry is often referred to as “Adolfina” for obvious reasons. She is notorious for calling on border police to just shoot immigrants and migrants and “a prominent” member of her party said that the only thing European nations welcoming refugees and immigrants was accomplishing was to “encourage Africans to reproduce.”
The other Aryan posing with King is the Dutch fascist Party leader Geert Wilders; an anti-Muslim extremist like Trump and King who repeatedly claims the Koran is comparable to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Obviously Mr. Wilders has never opened the Koran much less read one word, although it is doubtless he has extensively studied the works of Adolf Hitler.
Wilders also was a foreign Trump devotee who delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention in July to support a fellow bigot where he said, “I don’t want more Muslims in the Netherlands and I am proud to say that.” Apparently, Donald Trump has more electoral support from foreigners than just his buddies in the Kremlin and ISIS’ leaders and they are all fascists.
It is possible that King helped Trump decide to go forward with confidence as an avowed nationally-recognized racist, xenophobe and an Islamophobe. In 2014 before Trump was even a candidate, Steve King was calling on the federal government to start an indiscriminate espionage crusade against American Muslims with particular focus on the mosques they worshipped in. Trump called for enacting the same atrocities a little over a year later to wild acclaim from his celebrated religious freedom-loving Christian supporters.
Last December, King demanded that Muslims coming to America must openly reject Sharia law when he was asked if he supported Trump’s ban on Muslims; it is something King said no Muslim would ever think of doing. King then “attacked the failure” of two Muslim members of Congress who didn’t renounce Sharia Law that King says “is inconsistent with the United States Constitution. If they [Muslims] want to demonstrate they are open to being Americanized,” they have to renounce sharia law. “You won’t get [Representatives] Keith Ellison or Andre Carson to renounce Sharia law.”
As an aside, one would love a near-future face-to-face opportunity to impress upon Mr. King in the strongest possible terms that the Christian bible’s Mosaic Law, including the Ten Commandments, “is violently inconsistent as well as incompatible with the United States Constitution.” Still, there is not one stinking Republican Christian member of Congress, including Steve King, who will renounce the Ten Commandments as a sign they are willing to be “Americanized.” It is noteworthy that most of the other six-hundred or so Christian bible’s “Jewish” laws of Moses are closely mirrored by Sharia law.
Steve King’s ugly comments about Mexican Americans and Hispanic immigrants are well-documented and completely in line with Donald Trump, as are his beliefs about any and all non-Aryan and non-Christian human beings existing in the United States. In the past, he was one of the lone white supremacists outside of the mainstream GOP and was typically dismissed as just another mad man. That he openly expressed solidarity with two notorious European white supremacists and posted an image of him standing side-by-side with them, is a new development and further proof that with Donald Trump running the Republican Party, embracing white supremacy is now a cause célèbre for Republicans. The saddest fact of all is there is a terrifyingly significant number of Americans joining that warm embrace of something that sickens any decent human being whether they are Americans or Europeans, Christians, Jews or Muslims.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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