An incoming freshman class of lunatics is about to be sworn in as new members of Congress and the competition for the most insane or the most ignorant or the most racist or the most silly or the most foolish or the most corrupt Member of the 112th Congress is about to heat up.
In the advance of so many promising prima donnas, gadflies, race-baiters and all around wankers coming to town, the current holders of the titles in the 111th Congress need to throw down some markers to claim their top dog status. Perhaps that explains why Congressman Steve King is working overtime to prove that he is Alpha Dog where matters of race-baiting, fear-mongering and defense of whiteness are concerned. In a conversation on wingnut radio King let it be known that he will investigate folks for being black and in the past he has let it be known that he will also investigate folks for being brown and/or for being an immigrant.
Investigating ACORN (despite the fact that the wingnuts slandered it to death earlier this year) is high on King’s list as is his fear that a settlement to a lawsuit by black farmers for decades of proven discrimination by the Department of Agriculture is somehow “reparations” for slavery. At the root of all of King’s ‘concerns’ is a message that he is the one who will fight to protect white folks in America from scary black and brown people–especially that _ _ _ _ _ _ in the White House.
Steve King has perfected the dark art of turning every issue into a fresh opportunity for race-baiting, grandstanding and holding himself up as a defender of whiteness in America. The incoming Republican Confederate Party freshmen have their work cut out for them if they hope to top this corn-fed weasel.
Whether of not King acts out of racism is irrelevant–I don’t think that is the case as I doubt that King has any real sincere belief beyond self-promotion. If he was an old school racist one could at least say he had some integrity within the confines of his world view, but King and the others like him don’t even have that. They really are just about holding onto power by getting on the mighty wingnut Wurlitzer and appealing to the lizard brains of the gullible. If an appeal to race-baiting or immigrant bashing or religious intolerance helps in the effort then he’ll use use it, but it would be a mistake to think that he believes anything he says.
And that is why King and the other old dogs of the Republican Confederate Party will dominate the incoming Wingnut freshmen–some of those fools actually still believe the talking points they’ve been handed to read.
Still, it will be quite a contest.
Cheers
dengre
AAA Bonds
This farm thing blows my mind. Of course it’s “reparations”; it’s reparations for people whose lives as children were directly, indisputably harmed by an actively racist U.S. government fucking over their parents year after year in a way that can be quantified on a balance sheet in USD. Reparations are legally obligated for behavior like that, thank God.
Steve King: a little turd-man wearing glasses.
The Republic of Stupidity
And apparently we also an insatiable appetite for spite and payback…
Punchy
I still find it amazing that in a state that otherwise oozes moderates (hell, they legalized gay marriage), this douchebag found a way into the House. And continues to get re-elected. Fucking west Iowa and their ISU grads.
beltane
Creatures like Steve King are starting to fill me with an active hatred for the type of people who vote for them. This can’t be healthy.
freelancer
@Dennis G
typo, fyi.
Triassic Sands
With the defeat of Angle, Miller, and O’Donnell for Senate seats, I breathed a sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that the worst of the worst would not be wrecking things in the Senate.
Now, I’ll bet there will be a real contest among GOP newbies to prove just how sane and responsible the above trio really is…relatively speaking.
General Stuck
So true, and why we call them wingnuts. Self generating crazy, rotating centrifugal force, loosening, rattles, counter clockwise, one against anutter making more crazy to out crazy all the other wingnuts, when you reach maximum vortex of crazy critical mass, and then
wingnut lift off, spinning madly deeply into space.
Dennis G.
@Punchy:
I think you can find opportunistic assholes in every state and King proves that to be true.
He does give Iowa a bad name and that’s a shame, but then again there must be lots of lizard brain voters in his district.
stuckinred
@Dennis G.: Even in Georgia? :)
Dennis G.
@stuckinred:
Yes, and I’m afraid that you’ll just have to Deal with that for the next four years…
Tara the antisocial social worker
Wrong number of dashes for “very, very urban guy.”
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Dennis G.: Deal. Heh. I’d laugh if I wasn’t where Nikki Fucking Haley wasn’t the incoming governor.
stuckinred
@Dennis G.: Speaking of Broun.
Allan
California just elected a Brown governor.
AAA Bonds
Scott Brown joke.
WereBear
I still maintain that appealing to racists is itself racist; it doesn’t matter what he really thinks; and besides, I don’t think thinking has anything to do with it.
Allan
Also, King gives off a certain sweaty, tightly-wound Eric Massa vibe to me. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
AAA Bonds
@WereBear:
Of course it’s racist. Do we need to argue that? His position is to defend the American government’s previous racism. There’s no weaseling out of that one – this is a settlement based on actual harm.
And of course, what he’s REALLY mad about is that part: the part where America admits that it federally fucked over black people well into living memory. One of the evident and strange things about contemporary racist movements like Steve King’s is that they both defend and deny racism, often in the same breath.
Redshirt
For all the craziness about to be unleashed, I feel somewhat reassured in the face of it, since we have Barack Obama in the White House, and I can’t think of a better person in this world to handle it. And ultimately turn the tide of crazy back upon the Confederate Wingnuts.
I am 100% Obot and cannot speak more highly of our President – in action, but most especially in character. If we are to pass through this storm, he’s the one guy who can lead us through it. We’re blessed to have him. I’m talking Gandhi levels of awesomeness in the man.
I know this is not a reasonable argument on the fields of Debate, being all emotion, but I don’t care. I could list all the factual reasons for these feelings, but I bet I’m talking mostly to the choir, so why bother? Obama rules!
Dennis G.
@stuckinred:
Oh, I block him out, but he is always in the running for the crazy Olympiad.
General Stuck
@Redshirt:
Absolutely goddamn right. And fuck the haters, wherever they be.
JITC
This is just an attempt to move the conventional wisdom towards thinking that “reparations” are terrible in all circumstances.
Every single time we say or type that the Dept of Ag settlements are not reparations (which they are not in any way shape or form of course) is a way of making us all think of reparations as a bad thing.
But reparations are very similar to this settlement. A wrong was done. Money was stolen/withheld, discrimination was practiced. Now the wronged party is getting what it rightly deserves.
Every time we say “this is a deserved settlement, not reparations” we implicitly say that reparations are not deserved. But sometimes they are.
We should not fall for this trick.
BruceFromOhio
If only there was a way to convince him and his lot that jumping off high places wearing high heels and a cape will also ‘help in the effort’ …
ed_finnerty
I love that song
Karen
Does this become the year where the N word is said in Congress instead of all the code?
Does this become the year where these racists finally go far enough to show the country how extreme and hateful they are or will it be the year that the racist haters in the country feel they’re being vindicated?
Does this become the year that someone finally listens to the dog whistle against President Obama?
Does this become the year when the “liberals” of GOS and FDL become more overtly racist than the comments already there reflects?
(Notice I said “liberals.” Not talking about real liberals.)
Will this finally be the year sanity reigns? After all, places are starting to hire again and the economy is improving. Maybe the “primary” talk will die down.
No, I don’t think it will either.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
The GOP outreach to African-American is going to be extra amusing next election cycle: “Hey boy, vote Republican if you know what’s good for you!”
El Cid
I would agree that Steve King is not acting in this way because he’s a racist.
It’s just because he thinks that stuff connected to black people are inherently corrupt and part of a liberal conspiracy to destroy America.
Maybe it’s not that he thinks black people are bad & inferior, it’s just what they do and how they live, thus including the organizations run by them, are inferior and harmful.
If there weren’t so many blacks doing things that Steve King didn’t like and which he considers to be thieving and corrupt and crooked and attacking Free America, then Steve King wouldn’t have to be worried about black groups like ACORN, etc.
bob h
Given that all this nuttiness has little to do with the ostensible reason voters made a 2010 wave election-the economy, it seems reasonable to assume that the Republicans will be laughingstocks again in very short order. Independents are not going to be very forgiving, and there is going to be an angry reaction.
henqiguai
@The Republic of Stupidity (#3):
And we also apparently don’t bother to recall recent US history, wherein we actually did pay some token reparations to our fellow (Japanese-American) citizens forcibly moved into detention camps, and whose properties were given over to their white neighbors, during WWII.
brianr
@Punchy: Well more the judges deemed it unconstitutional to ban gay marriage. Then the voters punished the judges.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: Okay, that’ll be one Dell Studio XPS keyboard please. You can send by PayPal.