Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) retweeted a British neo-Nazi on Tuesday, the latest in a series of incidents in which the congressman has parroted or promoted the views of unabashed white supremacists and other bigots.If the media favored by liberals and centrists in America worked the way the right-wing media works, King would be a household name by now, notorious across America for his racism. If we had media with the reach of talk radio and Fox News that made every King outburst the subject of round-the-clock stories for days, his extremism would be widely recognized in America. He'd be famous (or infamous). As it is, he's known to Iowans and to politically engaged lefties. The rest of the country is barely aware that he exists.
“Europe is waking up... Will America... in time?” King tweeted, linking to an anti-immigrant tweet from political activist Mark Collett.
Collett is one of Britain’s most high-profile white supremacists. He has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and has called himself a “Nazi sympathizer.”
Collett was the subject of a 2002 Channel 4 documentary in the United Kingdom called “Young, Nazi and Proud” ...
“The Jews have been thrown out of every country, including England,” he says in the documentary. “Let’s face it, when it happens that many times it’s not just persecution: there’s no smoke without fire.”
... in December, [King] tweeted “Diversity is not our strength,” a phrase used for years by prominent racists and anti-Semites like David Duke....
King has said America should not apologize for slavery, has suggested that the country’s first black president was born in Kenya and has argued that most undocumented immigrants are “drug mules.”
The rest of the country also doesn't know about the extremism of Corey Stewart, who just won the GOP Senate nomination in Virginia. This is not to say that he isn't reported on -- here's a CNN story:
[Stewart] made Charlottesville's push to remove its statue of Robert E. Lee the centerpiece of his campaign for governor, holding rallies for the monument and displaying Confederate flags while defending "heritage" at his events....And here's Politico last year, when he unsuccessfully ran for governor:
He attended a news conference with the leader of the white supremacist protest that later resulted in the death of a counter-protester in Charlottesville. And after that counter-protester, Heather Heyer, was killed in a hit-and-run, Stewart blamed the violence on "both sides."
He has relentlessly criticized the city of Charlottesville for its plan to tear down a statue of General Robert E. Lee in one of the city’s major parks, and rename parks named after Lee and Stonewall Jackson.But there isn't saturation coverage of Stewart, and there won't be. He'll never be subjected to days and days of negative stories and commentary in the non-conservative press. There'll be isolated items, and then attention will move on -- and some coverage will be disturbingly "measured," like this New York Times tweet, which merely calls Stewart a "firebrand" (although the linked story and the sub-headline in the tweet get into some specifics):
“No Robert E. Lee monument should come down. That man is a hero & an honorable man. It is shameful what they are doing with these monuments,” he wrote in one Twitter missive, following up a few hours later: “After they tear down Lee & Beauregard, they are coming for Washington & Jefferson.” He added the hashtag #HistoricalVandalism.
When he hasn’t lamented the shoddy treatment of Southern heritage, he has compared the politicians who support removing statues to ISIS, the murderous Islamic extremists who have destroyed historic artifacts and religious sites throughout Syria. Or suggested that George Soros “needs to be tried for sedition, stripped of his citizenship or deported.”
Republican voters lashed out against traditional party leaders, ousting Representative Mark Sanford of South Carolina and nominating a conservative firebrand for Senate in Virginia https://t.co/FL0NsqJn3h
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 13, 2018
The unabashedly partisan right-wing press names and shames its Antichrists -- and remember, it's effectively the mainstream media for much of America. The actually mainstream media does no such thing. That imbalance has real consequences.
No comments:
Post a Comment