Ridiculous Tweets: Steve King Edition

Since my last article, a lot has happened in our country. In my effort to avoid Donald Trump related commentary for reasons previously mentioned, the happenings in the country since last week drastically decreased for me. This is of course because EVERYTHING in the media is centered around this phenomenon who is masterfully distracting the American people from everything happening in Congress and the shortcomings of his own administration.

Picture a man on fire running frantically outside of a bank in the middle of a city desperately screaming conspiracies. Naturally, whether we want to or not, all of us in the crowd are going to notice this guy. However, while this ridiculous scene is unfolding, picture a group of robbers casually entering that bank and taking all of the money away. The clerks and guards of the bank have all rushed outside to witness the spectacle of the man on fire claiming that we are all being brainwashed by corporate drones, and in doing so the vault had been carelessly left unguarded. In this metaphor, the man on fire is obviously our president, the robbers are the people surrounding the president and some members in Congress, and the clerks and guards are the media who eagerly abandoned their post of holding the government accountable and reporting on important issues to fueling the fire outside.   

It was at this point in my writing where I realized that I had just lied to myself by saying that I was not going to talk about Donald Trump by proceeding to talk about nothing but Donald Trump. I would delete everything that I just wrote, but I like the metaphor, so it shall remain.

The main focus of my blog tonight is on a man who is not on fire, but is under a lot of fire for a tweet he posted last week. The man is Iowa Representative Steve King and the tweet reads, �Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can�t restore our civilization with somebody else�s babies.�

When I first read this Tweet, I was confused, to say the least. The �Wilders� he refers to is a far right Dutch politician who has promised to close off the country to Muslims if elected. But what does this possibly mean? What does he mean by other people�s babies? Is this some sort of racist lecture that makes no sense?

Luckily, King went on CNN on Monday to clarify by saying among other things that, �We�ve also aborted nearly 60 million babies in this country since 1973. There�s been this effort we�re going to have to replace that void with somebody else�s babies.� So I guess it was a racist lecture that made no sense after all. Somehow King was able to tie xenophobia, anti-abortion beliefs, and nativism all into 140 characters. The only downside to this feat of a tweet is that it makes absolutely no sense. The idea that there is some scheme to purposely abort babies in order to bring in immigrants to fill the void is not only ridiculous but it�s completely invalid. There is no void. But there is a scheme to use fear and rhetoric like this in order to get votes. This fear tactic is a reincarnation of McCarthyism in the way that it incites distrust and hysteria.

Ironically, the Republican party came out of this embarrassment looking good. Many of King�s fellow lawmakers were quick to distance themselves from him and denounce his statements. The man has received universal criticism from almost everyone regardless of political party with the exception of David Duke who lavishly praised King for his Tweet. And Donald Trump, who has yet to respond to the incendiary comments made by his fellow Republican.

Despite nationwide outrage, King has been able to remain elected for over 10 years in Iowa despite his crazed rhetoric. It�s easy to just dispel King as crazy, but it�s not that simple. He is not alone in his belief of a false reality because he has held office since 2003. This is a societal struggle. And it cannot be resolved as long as it is not addressed.