Editorials & Other Articles

dalton99a

(81,391 posts) Sun Mar 12, 2017, 06:06 PM Mar 2017

Rep. Steve King warns that "our civilization" can't be restored with "somebody else's babies"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/03/12/rep-steve-king-warns-that-our-civilization-cant-be-restored-with-somebody-elses-babies/

Rep. Steve King warns that "our civilization" can't be restored with "somebody else's babies"
By Philip Bump | March 12 at 3:58 PM

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has gained notoriety for his often contentious — and, occasionally, almost overtly racist — comments about immigration and the demographics of the United States. On Sunday, in a tweet about the nationalist Dutch politician Geert Wilders, King again appears to have crossed the line.

Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies. https://t.co/4nxLipafWO
— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) March 12, 2017

The formulation of “our” civilization being at risk from “somebody else’s babies” is a deliberate suggestion that American civilization is threatened by unnamed “others” — almost certainly a reference to non-Westerners. The idea that national identity and racial identity overlap entirely is the crux of white nationalism; King’s formulation above toes close to that line, if it doesn’t cross. American culture, of course, was formed over the past two centuries by the assimilation of immigrants from a broad range of nations — first mostly European but later a broader diaspora. Iowa, the state King represents, remains one of the most homogeneously white in the United States.

King’s tweet echoes comments he made during the 2016 presidential election when, as a supporter of Donald Trump, he suggested that white people had contributed more to civilization than any other “subgroup.”