On Wednesday, the Iowa congressman tweeted:
“Nazi” is injected into Leftist talking points because the worn out & exhausted “racist” is over used & applied to everyone who lacks melanin & who fail to virtue signal at the requisite frequency & decibels. But...Nazis were socialists & Leftists are socialists https://t.co/0SkC2a4Y2l
— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) September 12, 2018
It was a curious move on King’s part to retweet Lana Lokteff while making the argument that the words “Nazis” and “racists” are overused. Lokteff is a promoter of Holocaust denial and white nationalism. She once said a country “can never, ever, ever be too white. It’s never white enough.”
This is not the first time King has retweeted a racist. On previous occasions, Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders have refused to explicitly condemn King by name for this. As Vox noted in June, “More recently, King—who has a long history of making racist comments—was back in the news for retweeting a neo-Nazi, a move that prompted nary an eyebrow raise from Ryan and several other members of the GOP establishment.” Instead, Ryan’s office offed a vague statement that “Nazis have no place in our politics.” It’s unlikely this time will be different.