Robin Opsahl | The Des Moines Register

Zach Boyden-Holmes, DesMoines

At a Webster County town hall on Tuesday, Rep. Steve King said presuming all cultures are equal devalues the 'founding fathers,' and tangled with an event attendee who said King discriminated against Mexican and non-white Americans.

The Kiron Republican said, as he has before, that he cares about history and Western civilization — not race.

"If we presume that every culture is equal and has an equal amount to contribute to our civilization, then we're devaluing the contributions of the people that laid the foundation for America and that's our founding fathers," King said in Fort Dodge. "It is not about race, it's never been about race. It is about culture."

Christina Russell, a Fort Dodge resident, said that his Facebook posts suggest he represents conservatives rather than all 4th District residents — including those who don't share his views. King responded that many people like his presence on Facebook.

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"There's a warning banner on there, and you should read that, I think you would never go there again, because it says 'don't go here unless you have a sense of humor,'" King said.

Russell said she disagreed with King's characterization of his Facebook posts as just a "sense of humor."

Earlier this year, he posted a Facebook meme depicting figures made up of red states punching blue states with the caption, "Folks keep talking about another Civil War … One side has about 8 trillion bullets, while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use.” King later deleted the picture.

"Making fun of brown people and criminalizing them, it's not a joke, it's not a sense of humor," Russell said. "Dehumanizing the Mexican culture is not a joke."

On Tuesday, he said he is making progress in winning back his committee seats and fighting back against what he called a "political lynch mob."

"I've been Mr. Nice Guy about this all along and let the cooler heads take over and now ... pretty soon I'm going to start pushing," he said.

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