MediaSteve Kingwhite nationalismRed states and blue states

White Nationalist Rep. Steve King Posts Violent Meme About New Civil War

Republican lawmaker shares image claiming "red states" have 8 trillion bullets.
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Overnight Editor, HuffPost

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Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who has a long history of touting white nationalism, has taken his meme game to a violent new level. 

The disgraced lawmaker ― who was unceremoniously stripped of all his House committee assignments this year for previous white nationalist rhetoric ― shared a graphic that imagined “another civil war,” this time between red and blue states. 

“One side has about 8 trillion bullets, while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use,” states the meme, shared on one of King’s verified Facebook pages. 

“Wonder who would win...” added King, apparently not noticing that his home state was depicted on the losing side.

The meme has since been removed from his Facebook page. King’s office did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Twitter users called out King for sharing the image:

This story has been updated to note the meme has been removed from King’s Facebook page. Hayley Miller contributed reporting.

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Before You Go

White Supremacists With Schools Named After Them
Wade Hampton III(01 of05)
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Wade Hampton III, a former South Carolina governor and senator who had ties to white supremacy groups, has at least two high schools, an elementary school and a school districtnamed after him in the state. There is also a dormitory named after Hampton at the University of South Carolina.

Hampton, who was a Confederate cavalry leader during the Civil War, served as the governor of South Carolina from 1876 to 1879 and as a U.S. senator from 1879 to 1891. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, after being elected to office, Hampton "took the lead in South Carolina in the fight to restore white supremacy." When running for governor, some of his strongest supporters were members of the paramilitary group "Redshirts," who intimidated black voters through violence.

(credit:WikiMedia)
Charles Brantley Aycock (02 of05)
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Several education institutions bear the name of Charles Brantley Aycock, a former politician who held racist views. At least two schools in North Carolina are named after Aycock. They're located in Greensboro and Pikeville.

Over the past year, a number of major institutions have renamed buildings that previously commemorated Aycock. In June 2014, Duke University voted to remove Aycock's name from an undergraduate dorm. East Carolina University also made the same decision in February 2015. UNC-Chapel Hill, however, retains a residence hall named after Aycock.

Aycock served as governor of North Carolina from 1901 to 1905. However, prior to becoming governor, the politician helped lead a statewide campaign pushing for the ideals of white supremacy and the disenfranchisement of blacks. According to the News & Observer, Aycock was "elected in 1900 during a horrific white supremacist campaign ... [that] led to the disenfranchisement of most black voters and the imposition of Jim Crow laws." (credit:WikiMedia)
Nathan Bedford Forrest(03 of05)
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Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first "grand wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1800s. In December 2013, Duval Public School District in Jacksonville, Fla., gained media attention after changing the name of local Nathan B. Forrest High School. But the district is not the only one with a school named after the former Klansman. At least one other school in the country, located in Tennessee, bears the Confederate general's name.

Duval School District decided to change the name of Nathan B. Forrest High School after more than 160,000 people signed a Change.org petition demanding the district take action. According to the petition, the "school got its name in 1959, when white civic leaders wanted to protest a court decision that called for integrating public schools."

Notably, at the end of his life, Forrest disavowed his involvement with the KKK. (credit:WikiMedia)
Richard Brevard Russell Jr. (04 of05)
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Richard Brevard Russell Jr., a former Georgia governor and senator who held white supremacist views, has at least one middle school named after him in Winder, Ga. The University of Georgia also has a library named after the politician.

Russell served as the governor of Georgia from 1931 to 1933 and as a U.S. senator from 1933 to 1971. Russell was staunchly in favor of segregation and supported the ideals of white supremacy. According to the book Richard B. Russell, Jr., Senator from Georgia, Russell at one time stated that "it was an insult to the people of Georgia ... 'to even insinuate that I stand for political and social equality with the negro.'" (credit:WikiMedia)
Robert C. Byrd(05 of05)
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Robert C. Byrd was the longest-serving senator in U.S. history before he passed away in 2010. However, before Byrd's long and highly regarded political career, he was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in West Virginia.

There is at least one high school named after Robert Byrd in Clarksburg, W.Va. There are also buildings and centers named after Byrd at academic institutions like Marshall University, West Virginia University, Shepherd University, the University of Charleston, and Wheeling Jesuit University.

Byrd started a local chapter of the KKK during the early 1940s and soon became its leader. While it is unclear how long Byrd was a member of the Klan, by the time he ran for Congress in 1952, he had publicly renounced his involvement with the organization. According to CNN, Byrd later called his involvement with the KKK "the most egregious mistake I've ever made."

While as a legislator Byrd initially filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he later earned high marks from organizations like the NAACP. (credit:AP)
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