Thread by @sparrowmedia

Can we have a serious conversation about this?

@SteveKingIA posted this image to his facebook yesterday (presumably to own libs), however it is far beyond hyperbole and antithetical to his duties as a Congressman.

We all recognize we live in a time of hyper-partisanship, but let's put this aside for a sec and focus just on what a Congressperson should do while they hold office. For starters lets take a look at @SteveKingIA's duties: wise-intern.org/orientation/do…

There have been and are going to be Congresspeople of all stripes, sadly some with poisonous white supremacist ideology like @SteveKingIA, but their ideologies do not divorce them from their duties of service to their constituents.

Iowa's 4th Congressional District has 643,368+ active Republicans and 620,305+ active Democrats. @SteveKingIA serves all of them, not a portion, and it's certainly not within his congressional duties to opine about violence between the two groups. sos.iowa.gov/elections/pdf/…

Now, to get back to @SteveKingIA's boomer meme in question. The graphic is a visualization of American Balkanization as King fantasizes it would look —literally red states and blue states fighting each other, coupled with a quip about one side having all the bullets.

I knew @SteveKingIA's post echoed the "culture war" fantasy talk frequently found on the alt-right digital cesspool, @getongab so I decided to take a look to see if anyone on the platform was responding to it. I found something much worse...

While people on Gab cheered @SteveKingIA others hustled to make sure copies of the #NewZealand terrorist's manifesto were circulated far-and-wide. Within it, a call to utilize the 2A as a wedge to balkanize the US along "political, cultural and, most importantly, racial lines."

I will not post a copy of the full manifesto. It is poison and rife with attempts to further manipulate the public, but the clip above is important because it shows that @SteveKingIA and the killer both fantasize about similar ends. A Balkanization of the US.

Why any sitting Congressperson would post a meme about partisan violence at scale across the US beyond me...

Why @SteveKingIA would gleefully post about wholesale political violence in the US only ONE DAY after political violence took the lives of 49 innocent people as they gathered for Friday prayer is unfeeling, devilish, and wildly outside the decorum of a sitting Congressperson.