"The View" debates: Is every Republican who supports building the wall racist?

Sunny Hostin is notably undecided on the question. Behar doesn’t take a firm position but it’s pretty clear from prior comments where she stands.

It is an amazing yet true fact that this very mainstream show, which features not one but two Republicans from famous Republican families on its panel, somehow still semi-regularly confronts the question of whether Republicans are uniformly bad people.

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Meghan McCain’s had enough. Nothing I saw on the Internet today made me laugh as hard as her blowing a gasket at the end here, shouting, “I am John McCain’s daughter!” Her point is that righties can’t be painted with a broad brush. If you admire her father as a decent independent-minded person, the very model of the “good Republican,” then by definition you can’t assume the worst about everyone associated with the party. Although I’m not sure her father’s example helps her case: Part of the reason Maverick was so well-regarded by people on the other side is … because he was a maverick. He was the un-Republican. He voted against repealing ObamaCare, he pushed amnesty for years, he palpably hated Trump and Trump’s supporters. To Hostin and Behar, John McCain is the exception that proves the rule. Sure, you can be a Republican and a good person — if you strongly dislike other Republicans, or at least the populists who comprise the president’s base.

As for Steve King, the subject of this segment, he inspired a resolution in the House today condemning white supremacy that passed overwhelmingly — with King voting in favor. That’s step one. Another step is coming, but what? Censure? Resignation? His home state’s most well-known newspaper says it’s time to go:

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The move by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to strip King of his committee assignments leaves Iowa without a seat on the vital House Agriculture Committee, as well as judiciary. It also leaves King with far less opportunity to work for his constituents on critically important rural development issues.

Not that King has seemed particularly interested in working for his district in recent years. Instead of holding town-hall meetings with his constituents, King spent many congressional breaks globe-trotting to Europe and hobnobbing with hard-right, nationalist leaders.These meetings apparently served to reinforce his own warped views of cultural purity and immigration…

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said if King doesn’t understand why “white supremacy” was offensive, he should “find another line of work.” We agree. He may as well mail a cardboard cutout of himself to Washington for all he’ll be able to accomplish if no one is willing to work with him.

I’m curious to see after he leaves Congress if he maintains his coy “who, me?” spin on his obvious racial views or if he goes full Paul Nehlen and embraces the last group of people willing to embrace him. An interesting question is why Republicans in Congress have turned on him now — in big numbers too, from Mitch McConnell to Kevin McCarthy to Ted Cruz, and on and on — when they’ve ignored things he’s said in the past. The cynical take from some liberals on social media today is that it’s a form of cover for Trump, just like 90 percent of Republican reaction to everything nowadays. They can’t or won’t draw the line with POTUS when he muses that there were some very fine people on both sides in Charlottesville so they’ll draw it with King instead. The more charitable take is that Republicans didn’t realize how many alt-righters there were within the party until Trump’s ascendance drew them out into the public square three years ago. King might have gotten the benefit of the doubt before that when he said that his concerns are with “culture,” not race. Not anymore. Ushering him towards the door of Congress is a way to try to usher the alt-right back out of the square.

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