GOP Rep. Steve King Says Kaepernick Protest Is 'Sympathetic To ISIS'

When Iowa Republican congressman Steve King opens his mouth you can usually bet on something moronic coming out. He kept that streak alive on Tuesday as he claimed Colin Kaepernick’s protest of the national anthem was “sympathetic to ISIS.” I think we’ve officially reached peak idiocy in this whole Kaepernick thing.

During an interview with Newsmax’s Steve Malzberg, King claimed (among other things) that Kaepernick is “undermining patriotism,” that there’s “no Constitutional right of freedom of expression when you’re in uniform and working as a football player.” He also said Kaepernick’s girlfriend is a Muslim and is clearly influencing and changing him. The 49ers quarterback is dating MTV personality Nessa Diab, who is Muslim, but he has not converted and denies any connection to Islam in his protest.

Watch King’s entire, mind-bogglingly stupid interview here:

This is just another in a long line of examples that show Steve King for what he is: a moron.

I’m not being political when I say King is a moron. I’m not a liberal or a Democrat so don’t think this is some kind of partisan attack. No, when I say King is an idiot, I’m just stating a fact. He’s also a man who cloaks everything in black-and-white, faux-patriotic terms. I say “faux-patriotic” because rather than actually fight for his country, King applied for and received three II-S deferments from the Vietnam War because he was enrolled in college. Clearly his studies were really important to him…then he up and left Northwest Missouri State after three years without graduating. But hey, that’s a tough school, it’s long been referred to as “the Harvard of  Northwest Missouri.”

This is the same guy who was named the “least effective member of Congress,” has actively fought against animal rights, praised lobbyists, has a Confederate flag in his Congressional office (despite the fact that Iowa was on the Union side during the Civil War), voted against the $52 million Hurricane Katrina relief bill and once said about undocumented immigrants, “For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds — and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’ve been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

I’m not even going to begin unpacking that last one.

King also recently mused, “I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about? Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”

Hey, guys, he’s got a point. I mean, it’s not like the Chinese had the most technologically advanced civilization on the planet for a good 2,000 years or anything.

Here’s the point: It’s completely fine for anyone to disagree with what Kaepernick is doing. I have zero problem with that. But anyone claiming he doesn’t have the right to protest peacefully is dead wrong. And people, like King, who try to demonize him by claiming he has nefarious motives and is “sympathetic to ISIS” deserve not only our scorn, but our mockery.

I may not agree with Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem, but I’ll damn sure defend his right to do it. We all should.