Eugene Robinson: Action must now follow GOP's rebukes of King's racism

Republicans are shocked, shocked, to learn that Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is a dyed-in-the-wool racist. Also that snow is cold, the ocean is wet and the sky is often blue.

The clamor of GOP voices denouncing King’s latest racist eruption is more amusing than inspiring. Where have his Republican colleagues been all these years? Surely the “party of Lincoln” is aware that race has been the most divisive issue in our national history. Surely Republicans were aware of King’s toxic views, which he makes no attempt to hide. Why such an uproar now?

Perhaps King’s newly outraged critics were waiting for him to finally spell it out in language that even the “party of Trump” cannot ignore. Which he did.

In a New York Times profile last week, King expounded on his hardline anti-immigrant views, which are the only thing that has distinguished him, or undistinguished him, in an otherwise mediocre congressional career. He boasted of having once told President Trump that “I market-tested your immigration policy for 14 years, and that ought to be worth something.”

In what might have been an unguarded moment, King told the Times: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization: how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”

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