Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP

Hurrah! One of the leading bigots on Capitol Hill is retiring. Right-wing Republican Peter King announced Monday that he will not be standing for reelection to the House of Representatives in 2020. Yet media organizations, from the New York Times to the Washington Post to Vice News, lined up to describe the New York congressman as a “moderate” and insisted on framing his departure as a blow to Donald Trump and the Republican Party (King is the 20th Republican in the House to announce he’s standing down). Even worse, the top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, described King as standing “head & shoulders above everyone else” and “principled.” “I will miss him in Congress & value his friendship,” the Senate Minority Leader tweeted.

Peter King stood head & shoulders above everyone else



He’s been principled & never let others push him away from his principles



He’s fiercely loved America, Long Island, and his Irish heritage and left a lasting mark on all 3



I will miss him in Congress & value his friendship https://t.co/GSXizZ2c5D — Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) November 11, 2019

King hasn’t become any less McCarthy-esque, or bigoted, in the intervening years. In May 2016, he endorsed Trump for president and, by December 2016, King had arrived at Trump Tower to try and persuade the then president-elect to introduce a federal Muslim surveillance program. In January 2017, as protesters amassed at the nation’s airports, he threw his weight behind Trump’s Muslim ban. And, according to the Times on Monday, the retiring congressman told the president “he would use his final months in office to vote against articles of impeachment and support Mr. Trump’s re-election bid.” So what on Earth is with Schumer and his suggestion that his fellow New Yorker is some sort of “principled” Republican who stands “head & shoulders above” the rest of his Trumpist party?

What Schumer exemplifies is the Democratic establishment’s unwillingness to take Islamophobia seriously — or to stand up for the rights of Muslim Americans in the same way that they stand up for other minority communities.

On the one hand, it could be argued that the Senate minority leader is only doing what top Democrats always do: fetishize the idea of bipartisanship and brag about their friendships across the aisle. Remember how Joe Biden heaped praise on a Michigan Republican running for reelection to the House in 2018, or told Mitch McConnell in 2013 that “we want to see you come back” to the Senate? Or how the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates fell over one another to laud John McCain at the last debate in Ohio, despite the late Republican senator from Arizona having run a toxic and racist election campaign against Barack Obama in 2008? On the other hand, what Schumer exemplifies is the Democratic establishment’s unwillingness to take Islamophobia seriously — or to stand up for the rights of Muslim Americans in the same way that they stand up for other minority communities. The sad fact is that anti-Muslim bigotry gets a pass in Washington, D.C. — from both politicians and the press alike. There is no cost or consequence for Islamophobic rhetoric or behavior. Ask Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala. Or ask the current occupant of the White House. Schumer’s shameful tweet is a reminder that the Democrats need new leadership. They need senators and members of the House who are willing to call out Islamophobia and racism across the board, and who won’t sacrifice the safety or security of minority communities at the altar of “bipartisanship.” On Monday, it was left to Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., to provide the moral leadership and clarity that Schumer couldn’t.

Peter King is an Islamophobe who held McCarthyite hearings targeting American Muslims, said “there are too many mosques in this country” and blamed Eric Garner for his own death at the hands of police.



Good riddance. https://t.co/cYZOrnaK2M — Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 11, 2019