The most interesting thing about the recent kerfuffle over conservative Congressman Steve King is the scandalous truth it reveals about the Left.
King, a strong proponent of border security, was stripped of his committee appointments after he was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”
This is a stupid, racist thing to say and if he said it, King deserves the congressional kick in the ass.
There’s no recording of the interview, however, and King claims the Times changed the meaning of his remarks with dishonest punctuation. He believes he was asked if he was a white nationalist or white supremacist and responded along the lines of, “White nationalist? White supremacist? Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?” This actually makes some sense since schools don’t generally teach classes in White Supremacy and because the Times is a dishonest leftist mouthpiece that can no longer be trusted to tell the truth.
Still, King has made some suspect remarks in the past, and my point is not to defend him.
My point is to highlight the disgraceful, offensive and deeply uncivil reaction from the Left and how it unmasks their hatred of everything that makes this country unique and great.
The Left and the press — but I repeat myself — immediately rushed to use King’s remarks to attack Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party. In a representative comment, CNN Commentator Kirstin Powers said, “One of the questions that we should all be asking when we’re talking about Steve King is really what’s the difference between him and Donald Trump. There’s not that much difference … So this is a much bigger problem for the Republican Party than just a few comments.”
The creepy, ugly and hateful tactic of calling your political opponents racist at every opportunity would probably work a lot better if congressional Democrats didn’t regularly congregate with and excuse virulent anti-Semite gay basher Louis Farrakhan. But leftists are one-trick ponies at this point and no wonder. If they didn’t ceaselessly accuse the Right of racism, they would have to explain why their policies turn everything they touch to crap.
In order to drive home the image of King — and thus Trump — and thus all of us deplorable non-elites — as racist, the Times and other venues published what they claimed were lists of King’s previous “racist” remarks. Most of these had nothing to do with race but were simply in support of the English language and opposed to anti-Western Islamism.
But the so-called “racist” remark that really leapt out at me was this comment King made to the Washington Post: “The idea of multiculturalism, that every culture is equal — that’s not objectively true.”
Not only is this not racist, it’s indisputable. Does the Times think the culture of the slaveholding American South was equal to non-slaveholding cultures? Does it think cultures that grant no rights to women are as good as cultures that do? Multiculturalism is virtue-signaling nonsense.
Western culture, with its unprecedented freedoms, tolerance and diversity, is unique in its greatness and finds its greatest political expression in the founding documents of the United States. These were the creation of white males whose thought was shaped by thousands of years of Christian civilization informed by classical wisdom. These men were flawed and sinful and all people who are not flawed and sinful may throw stones at them, but their ideas were a blessing to the whole world nonetheless.
Part of that blessing, and part of America’s greatness, is that any American of any race can sign on to the founding ideas and be counted as One of Us. This was not always true in fact, but it was always true in principle and the inner logic of the founding won out over time as logic tends to do.
If King believes our founding ideas are threatened by their own unique spirit of welcoming inclusion, he is spouting gibberish and deserves to be the target of moral indignation. But if The New York Times thinks that defending those founding ideas and admiring the genius of the Christian white men who came up with them is inherently racist, they are spouting gibberish that undermines the very source and logic of that moral indignation.
In using King to smear everyone on the Right, the Left has once again revealed that it’s not racism they hate. They hate Western Culture and the freedom it provides to those who oppose their search for more and more government power. Republicans should give King his slap and get back to work defending us from the true opponents of the American idea.