Of course we're angry at Steve King – but we should also be thanking him

Perhaps we owe Steve King a debt of gratitude for saying all the quiet parts loud, for expressing the true misogyny the Republican party has long hidden in cloaked phrases and vague language

From the president’s racist attacks against Baltimore, to Melania’s “I don’t really care, do u” jacket, one of the hallmarks of Trumpism is an expression of the vilest nature of the Republican party’s anti-immigrant, misogynistic ideology.

In fact, Trump taking office marked the beginning of a period of Republicans “saying the quiet part loud”. Trump is, of course, the king of this genre, but Steve King is quickly making a name for himself as the guy who says the crazy stuff that a lot of Republicans have long believed, but have been smart enough to never say out loud.

Yesterday was a banner day for the Iowa congressman, who has been stripped of all committee appointments for his famous “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization – how did that language become offensive?” comments. King said out loud what many Republicans and right-wing “white nationalists” (racists) have long believed: “Rape is good, actually, when there’s a baby.”

In his exact words, the Iowa congressman asked: "What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?”​

On the face of it these comments seem insane, but they’re not just the random blathering of an old man – they are intentional ideas that are held by many members of the GOP. Scarier than that, they are another step in the Republican party’s war on women. The goal of these comments is to desensitize and destigmatize rape and incest with the end goal of the continued oppression of women. Rape and incest are tools of oppression and it seems people like Steve king would like to keep them in their arsenal for the future, presumably just in case they need to be used.

In fact, King’s rape comments were ostensibly defending the fever dream of all Republicans: the abortion ban. It’s no coincidence that these comments came as King was again talking about his support of a ban on abortions including in the case of rape or incest. A lot of Republicans and most white nationalists (these two groups overlap but are not the same – yet) are violently anti-choice.

I’ve long postulated that this abortion ban is not about life. As I wrote in June, Republicans believe life begins at conception – except, of course, when the fetus in the uterus of a woman in ICE custody, in which case it isn’t considered an “in custody death.”

Abortion bans are about power over women and their bodies, which is why abortion ban talk usually precedes anti-birth control rhetoric. The connection between Republican’s obsession with taking away the right to choose and their hostility towards birth control cannot be dismissed, these two things are profoundly and inexorably linked.

The party that supports the death penalty is not obsessed with “life”. No, they are obsessed with controlling women’s bodies and they are worried that women who control their own bodies might have the power to displace them the way that they desperately fear people of colour might. The Republican war on choice has never been about life, it has always been about maintaining the power of white men.

Perhaps we owe Steve King a debt of gratitude for saying all the quiet parts loud, for expressing the true misogyny the Republican party has long hidden in cloaked phrases and vague language. Just like we know Trump is unquestionably a racist, we know that the Republican party is working on an anti-woman agenda and few people have said this with more inadvertent clarity than Steve King.

People like King have seen the writing on the wall: they know that eventually mediocre white men who got their jobs largely because of their status of being both white and male will be replaced by people who are more competent, talented and hardworking, because that’s how capitalism works.

I have no doubt that Steve King is a White supremacist misogynist. And equally, I am convinced that people like Steve King want affirmative action for white men and they’re hoping to get it by trying to control women’s bodies. King has revealed that he is willing to maintain control using the most sinister means at men’s disposal. Let’s not let him.