A few minutes ago on MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes was hosting a panel discussion about diversity in the Republican Party when Esquire’s Charlie Pierce noted that the mood on the floor of Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena on Monday was one of white anger. Republican Iowa Rep. Steve King responded, as you can see above, that he was sick of all this complaining about whiteness because the people of “western Europe” and “eastern Europe” have done more for the world than “any other subgroup.” The transcript:
PIERCE: Tell you what, in that hall today, that hall is wired. That hall is wired by loud, unhappy, dissatisfied white people. Any sign of rebellion is going to get shouted down either kindly or roughly but that’s what’s going to happen.
KING: This whole business does get a little tired. I would ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people you are talking about. Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization? [N.b.: The “other people” the panelists had just been talking about were black Americans and Mexicans.]
HAYES: Than white people?
KING: Than Western civilization itself. That’s rooted in western Europe, eastern Europe and the United States of America, and every place where Christianity settled the world. That’s all of Western civilization.
Before King said this, by the way, he had literally just complained about the “expectation that you should identify yourself with a group” in order to decide who to vote for, an expectation that he claimed that Democrats were exploiting.
He’s right about one thing, though: This whole business does indeed get a little tired!
