talkpolitics | I'm done predicting. It's happened. Racism is now back in the mainstream of American politics.

Steve King: This whole "white people business" does get a little tired, Charlie. I mean, I'd ask you to go back through history and ask you, where are the contributions that have been made by these other categories of people you're talking about.... Where did any other sub-group of people contribute more to civilization?...Than Western Civilization itself...Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the United States of America, and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled...

I'm not going to bother citing every non-European contribution to civilization. (Just a few, inoculation, printing, advanced mettallurgy, and our entire system of numbers, not to mention that major religion King cites.) There is a name for what King is saying here. It is white supremacy -- racism.

This man is an elected official. Which would be bad enough, but he was being interviewed at a major political convention, where the Republican front-runner has been endorsed by the likes of David Duke, and has a habit of retweeting posts from white supremacist sites.

Just a few years ago, when I was posting regularly here, I would occasionally point out that racism was being folded back into the mainstream of American politics by the Republican party. The response was often comments accusing me of hyperbole, fear-mongering, etc. I was denounced as a SJW who was crying "wolf."

Well, here we are. I don't think applying the term "racism" to what King is saying can be called "hyperbole" by any stretch of the imagination.

If, however, anyone thinks it's wrong to use that icky "R" word here, I'd really be interested in knowing why. We are seeing these days, not only the smooth-talking "discreet" form of racism embodied by David Duke, but the hideous, open version best exemplified by the people who lynched Emmett Till. You can glimpse it in the voice and face of every white person who defends the murders of Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, John Crawford III, and Eric Garner by citing black crime statistics -- an oblique but unmistakeable way of arguing that black males are so dangerous they should be killed with impunity.

Racism's back, baby! Whether it's going to stay back depends on how serioiusly we, the voters, take this election and the danger Donald Trump and his racist pals pose to this country.