White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization – how did that language become offensive? - Steve King

About Steve King

Steven Arnold King (born May 28, 1949) is an American former politician and businessman who served as a U.S. representative from Iowa from 2003 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Iowa's 5th congressional district until 2013 and the state's 4th congressional district from 2013 to 2021. Born in 1949 in Storm Lake, Iowa, King attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1970. He founded a construction company in 1975 and worked in business and environmental study before seeking the Republican nomination for a seat in the Iowa Senate in 1996. He won the primary and the general election, and was reelected in 2000. In 2002 King was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa's 5th congressional district after the incumbent, Tom Latham, was reassigned to the 4th district after redistricting. He was reelected four times before the 2010 United States census removed the 5th district and placed King in the 4th, which he represented from 2013. King is an opponent of immigration and multiculturalism, and has a long history of racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. In 2018 The Washington Post described King as "the Congressman most openly affiliated with white nationalism." made controversial statements against immigrants, and supported European right-wing populist and far-right politicians who have engaged in racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. For much of King's congressional tenure, Republican politicians and officials were silent about his rhetoric, and frequently sought his endorsement and campaigned with him because of his popularity with northwest Iowa's voters. Shortly before the 2018 election, the National Republican Congressional Committee withdrew funding for King's reelection campaign and its chairman, Steve Stivers, condemned King's conduct, although Iowa's Republican senators and governor continued to endorse him. King was narrowly reelected, but after a January 2019 interview in which he questioned the negative connotations of the terms "white nationalist" and "white supremacy", King ran for reelection but, campaign funding and support having declined, lost the June 2020 Republican primary to Randy Feenstra by 10 points.

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