“Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who has a long history of racist and outrageous remarks, lost his long-held House seat in a primary race Tuesday,” NBC News reported Tuesday night, June 2, 2020.
Mr. King, 71, a college dropout, graduated from high school in 1967 at the height of the Vietnam War, but never served in the military. He started a construction company in 1975 and was elected as a Republican to the Iowa state senate in 1996 and Congress in 2002.
Often at odds with his own party, which wasn’t far-right enough to suit him, he was “named the least effective member of Congress by InsideGov” in 2015, according to Wikipedia.
King became infamous for making remarks that were widely interpreted as racist, and the Washington Post described him as the “congressman most openly affiliated with white nationalism,” according to Wikipedia. In 2018, the National Republican Congressional Committee refused to help him get re-elected, and a year later he was stripped of his committee assignments. His own party considered him an embarrassment.
Good riddance.
Photo: Iowa voters wiped that smirk off Rep. Steve King’s face in the primary election held on Tuesday, June 2, 2020.
There are many Congressmen and women that the voters should be shown the door. Yet we voters are all too often unwilling to remove folks from office, ensuring long careers in Congress in both houses for most members no matter their faults.
Of course Mr. King could still run as an independent. Sometimes we voters like scalawags, thieves, and ner do wells in congress. yes they are crooks but they are our crooks.
I don’t like crooks from either political party. A red crook or a blue crook is still a crook.
Some of us vote for putting in office someone who will clean up the deficiencies/mistakes and squandered opportunities of the previous administration.
However, it always seems that Congress never cleans it up no matter how much the political rhetoric and promises to reform and do right for our country. All we can do is blame Congress who votes along political party lines instead of what is best for our country and the American people. Sigh
No one gets everything they want under our political system, and governing is always imperfect, but it holds us together when it works. The system currently is dysfunctional because debate of issues, negotiation, and compromise have been displaced by personal attacks, disinformation, and dirty tricks. In my opinion, one party is guiltier than the other. The social contract is put at risk when we have a large number of people who reject democracy and don’t accept the results of democratic processes. We need to return to our ancestors’ basic principles.