Steve King has finally been defeated – here's 15 of the most racist things he's said and done

Republican congressman Steve King – known for racist comments – has finally lost his seat in US Congress after serving nine terms representing Iowa.

He lost the race to state senator Randy Feenstra, who Republicans have turned to as a safer option following King's long history of racist comments and supporting white supremacy.

In 2019, King was removed from his Congressional committee assignments after he expressed sympathy for white supremacists during an interview with the The New York Times.

However, King's racist comments and actions stretch back much further than that. As a way of saying 'good riddance' here are some of the most shocking things that King has done and said. May we not see his likes again.

Helped make English the official language of Iowa

Back in 2002 as part of his tenure in the Iowa State Senate, he acted as chief sponsor to law that would make English the official language of the state, in a move considered to oppose multiculturalism.

The law passed in that year and has remained ever since.

If that wasn't bad enough, King filed a bill asking for schools in the state to teach the completely baseless claim that the "United States is the unchallenged greatest nation in the world and that it has derived its strength from … Christianity, free enterprise capitalism and Western civilization."

Tried to sue the Iowa secretary of state for sharing voting information in different languages

After successfully making English the official language of his state, King then tried to sue governor-elect Chet Culver and secretary of state Michael Mauro for 'violating the English only law' after they shared information on how to vote on the official government website in Spanish, Laotian, Bosnian and Vietnamese.

Claimed Americans were undergoing a 'holocaust' because of migrants

In 2006, King was quoted as saying that because of illegal immigrants 25 Americans were dying a day, something he called:

A slow-motion holocaust.

Compared migrants to 'livestock'

In a precursor to Donald Trump's border wall, King shared a model of a wall on the Mexican border on the House floor. When describing how it would work he said:

We need to do a few other things on top of that wall, and one of them being to put a little bit of wire on top here to provide a disincentive for people to climb over the top or put a ladder there. We could also electrify this wire … We do that with livestock all the time.

Claimed terrorists would be 'dancing in the streets' if Barack Obama became president

You won't be surprised to learn that King wasn't a fan of President Obama, but even before he got into office he was comparing the Democrat to extremist terrorists. During his 2008 reelection campaign he said:

I don't want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name – whatever their religion their father might have been, I'll just say this: When you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States – I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world?

What does it look like to the world of Islam? I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaeda, he radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11. 

Said that racial profiling was an 'important component of legitimate law enforcement'

In June 2010 when addressing the House, King advocated for racial profiling, claiming that it was a 'legitmate part of law enforcement.'

Some claim that the Arizona law will bring about racial discrimination profiling.

First let me say, Mr. Speaker, that profiling has always been an important component of legitimate law enforcement. If you can't profile someone, you can't use those common sense indicators that are before your very eyes.

Now, I think it's wrong to use racial profiling for the reasons of discriminating against people, but it's not wrong to use race or other indicators for the sake of identifying people that are violating the law.

Claimed you can identify migrants by 'what clothes they are wearing'

Staying in 2010, King once again made racist comments on the House floor about migrants. This time he said:

What kind of clothes people wear … what kind of shoes people wear, what kind of accent they have … sometimes it’s just a sixth sense they can’t put their finger on.

Didn't want Muslim people working in meat-packing plants

During a radio interview with Breitbart News in 2015, King opposed the idea of Muslim people handling meat products, especially pork. He said:

I don't want people doing my pork that won't eat it, let alone hope I go to hell for eating pork chops.

Said that 'multiculturism was a tool for the Left to subdivide a culture'

On a 2012 panel at CPAC, the annual US conservative conference he said:

A tool for the Left to subdivide a culture and civilization into our own little ethnic enclaves and pit us against each other.

Opposed affirmative action

Speaking in 2009 about affirmative action, a policy that helps disadvantage groups who are subject to discrimination, King said:

There's been legislation that's been brought through this House that sets aside benefits for women and minorities. The only people that it excludes are white men... Pretty soon, white men are going to notice they are the ones being excluded.

Claimed he was against the DACA because Dreamers were smuggling marijuana

In 2013, King opposed the legal right of 'Dreamers' to live in the United States, claiming that they were involved in the drug trade.

For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalised with the same act.

Has met and praised many far-right politicians

Apart from supporting far-right politicians in his own country, King has also associated with and praised the words of far-right politicians from around the world.

Here he is posing with Geert Wilders from the Netherlands, a man who claimed that the Quran was 'worse than Mein Kampf.'

In 2017, he wrote to French extremist politician Marie Le Pen, telling her:

Our shared civilization must be saved.

Also in 2017, he tweeted his support for the far-right prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban.

King has also shown support for Austria's Freedom Party and endorsed the Canadian alt-right candidate Faith Goldy.

Claimed other cultures 'haven't as contributed as much to civilisation as the Whites'

At the 2016 Republican National Convention King said, without any research or evidence:

This whole business does get a little tired. I would ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people you are talking about. Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?

Spread the 'white genocide' conspiracy theory

While speaking to the Austrian website unzensuriert.at in 2018, displayed a knowledge of the 'Great Replacement' conspiracy, otherwise known as 'white genocide' which is the belief that the individuals like George Soros are attempting to make the white race a minority.

He said:

Great replacement, yes. These people walking into Europe by ethnic migration, 80 percent are young men. They are somebody else’s babies.

Says that the term 'white supremacist' is a 'derogatory term'

During an appearance on WHO-TV in Iowa in October 2018, he answered the question 'What is a white nationalist?' by saying:

First of all, I think you have to be white, but then we’ve got Rachel Dolezal who didn’t have to be black to be black. It is a derogatory term today. I wouldn’t have thought so maybe a year or two or three ago. But today they use it as a derogatory term and they imply you are a racist. That’s the bottom line for that.

A perfect time for him to lose his seat, we would argue.