Rep. Steve King gets down with the white right.
"I've read your book, I just hadn't met you,"
said Rep. Steve King, beaming as he shook hands with white nationalist Peter Brimelow before a panel discussion Thursday. He went on to say that Brimelow “eloquently wrote about the balkanization of America.” But, later, he told various reporters that he wasn't familiar with Brimelow's work.
So, which is it, congressman? Do you think this guy has the right idea? Or were you trying to impress a racist demagogue with some flattery in hopes of a free autograph? Or do you think he has the right idea and you suddenly realized that being depicted as a fan of the founder and publisher of the xenophobic, anti-semitic, anti-immigrant hate-site VDARE might not play too well with the voters if you ever decide to seek higher office than representing Iowa's 5th District?
Brimelow was on hand at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference to speak about how policies encouraging diversity are killing America (read: white America). He has urged the Republican Party to work on consolidating the white vote. His book Alien Nation argues that “Race is destiny in American politics."
As Brian Tashman reported, Brimelow wasn't the only crackpot on the panel, which drew an overflow crowd. Another was Robert Vandervoort, a former leader of the white nationalist Chicagoland Friends of the American Renaissance published by fellow white nationalist Jared Taylor.
Brimelow told the appreciative audience that multiculturalism and bilingualism empower minorities and suppress traditional American (read: white) groups. Using French-speaking Quebec as an example, he called multiculturalism and bilingualism a “ferocious attack on the working class.” As is widely known, the well-being of the working class has been a long-time concern of CPAC and the Republican Party. Uh-huh.
The ferociously anti-immigrant King came to discuss his bill that would make English the official language of the United States. It's called the “English Language Unity Act of 2011” and would “establish a uniform English language rule for naturalization.” For six years, he pushed a similar bill in the Iowa legislature.
When VDARE's record of bashing people of color was pointed out to him by a Buzzfeed reporter after the panel, King said he hadn't seen all the evidence and discounted that provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which categorizes VDARE as a hate group. “I wouldn’t take them seriously. No, not at all.”
Thus, King ignored the fact that in 2009 Brimelow extolled the tea party as being "about race" and said "the backlash [against the Obama administration] is overwhelmingly white." He also dismissed dcommentaries that have appeared on the VDARE site, including:
America was defined — almost explicitly, sometimes very explicitly — as a white nation, for white people, and what that means is that there is virtually no figure, no law, no policy, no event in the history of the old, white America that can survive the transition to the new and non-white version.
— Sam Francis, VDARE.com, July 21, 2003
“Whites are doing something no other people have ever done in human history. Our rulers and elites welcome replacement by aliens, they vilify our ancestors and their own, they sacrifice our interests to those of favored minorities, and they treat the entire history of the West as if it were a global plague of rapine and exploitation. This is a disease that is killing us, and we must fight it head on.”
— Jared Taylor, VDARE.com, July 4, 2008
Nice guy whose books you've been reading, congressman. Luckily for
you as an adoption crusader, you didn't have to knowingly shake hands with any gay conservatives. CPAC welcomed Brimelow but banned a proposed gay panel from the conference.
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The liberal group CREDO is organizing a SuperPac against King.
