North Carolina's ultra-MAGA gubernatorial candidate, in his own words
The Republican Party tacks hard right in the critical purple state
After Super Tuesday, all eyes are understandably on Trump’s locking up the presidential nomination and Nikki Haley’s exit, but nobody should ignore what’s going on in congressional and state-level races.
The real story is in North Carolina, a critical swing state, where the G.O.P. candidate for the governorship is…well, it’s hard to even sum up what Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson stands for given just how far right his positions are, so let’s just turn to his own words.
He’s a Holocaust denier.
“Hitler disarming millions of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.”
“There is a REASON the liberal media fills the airwaves with programs about the NAZI and the "6 million Jews" they murdered.
There is also a REASON those same liberals DO NOT FILL the airwaves with programs about the Communist and the 100+ million PEOPLE they murdered throughout the 20th century.”
He buys into a surprising number of anti-semitic conspiracy theories.
In 2019 Robinson went on a podcast hosted by an alleged cult leader, where he endorsed the host's conspiracy theory that Jewish bankers are one of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” along with Muslims, China and the CIA.
“It’s amazing to me that we live in this age of information where you can go online and you can find all this information, and it’s not hidden from anybody.”
He believes — on divine authority — that women are not suited for leadership.
Christians are “called to be led by men,” North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson told a Charlotte area church congregation last month.
“The “activists/protestors” who tore down “Silent Sam” are the epitome of the lawlessness and violence that ushers in totalitarianism and oppression. They are no better than the NKVD which carried out mass killings in Soviet Russia under Stalin. They are no better than the Brown Shirts who terrorized Jewish neighborhoods on “the Night of the Broken Glass” during the Nazi rise to power in Germany. And they they are no better than the very racist they claim to be protesting. For just like the Klu Klux Klan they operate with violent and destructive tactics to obtain their wishes. The rule of law that these individuals now skirt, and the municipal government chooses not to enforce, is what keeps our society civil and orderly. That civility and order was lost once in our history. The results were DEVASTATING. The statue that was torn down is a reminder of that history.”
He thinks worrying about Nazis is just a distraction from the socialists taking over school boards.
“There are people on our school boards, city councils, state legislatures, and in our federal government who believe in the tenants of Marxism.
Think about that (instead of Hitler) for a moment.”
The Civil Rights movement? Communism. And MLK? A fake.
“It is at once funny and sad that so many people will follow the lead of a bunch of atheists and worship an ersatz pastor as a deity.”
“We’ve got to do it that same way they rolled it forward, we’ve got to do it the same way with rolling it back. We’ve got it down to 12 weeks. The next goal is to get it down to 6, and then just keep moving from there…”
“What are we going to do about an education system that’s teaching our children that they can be a boy or a girl no matter what their gender actually is?” Robinson said. “I cannot believe that I’m living in a time when there are people who say they are educated, but they believe that gender is simply a concept of the mind. What is wrong with these people? The very foundations of humanity, of God Almighty, they’re trying to tear them down.”
Speaking at a North Carolina church in June 2021, he said, “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth.”
He added, “And yes, I called it filth, and if you don’t like that I called it filth, come see me and I’ll explain it to you.”
He built his reputation on defending the 2nd Amendment after the Parkland, Florida shootings — and went on to call the Parkland school-shooting survivors “prosti-tots” and worse.
“Let me see if I have this correct. A spoiled, angry, disobedient CHILD shot and killed 17 of his classmates, and now spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN are trying to tell law abiding ADULTS that we must give up our Constitutional RIGHT to own certain weapons. Cue Rod Serling because this must be an episode of the Twilight Zone? David Hogg and the rest of these silly little immature "media prosti-tots" need to grab a passy, have seat in time out, and shut up. The very ideology of conservatism that your liberal mollycoddling string pullers have taught you to despise is exactly what you and your schools have desperately needed to prevent these massacres as well as the multitude of FAILURES that exist in public education. The conservative principles of excellence, hard work, self respect, RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE, and DISCIPLINE are what your schools need. Instead you have the liberal syndrome of rectal cranial inversion mixed with a healthy dose of just plain evil and stupid permeating your hallways. If, two days before this shooting, a hard nosed nonsense conservative had walked into that school and put into place the ideals and principles that would have avoided that massacre, you spoiled little bastards would have kicked and screamed like babies in a crib. That's what you are doing now. In fact you're doing less than that. A baby's cries are useful and necessary. You are simply making irritating noise. You say you want to "make a difference." Well here's how you do it. Go to school. Behave well. Study hard. Respect your fellow classmates. And enjoy being children while you can.”
This is the candidate whom Trump has called “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
Robinson — who rose from poverty and would be the state’s first Black governor — faces Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein in November. Stein, who has been endorsed by Roy Cooper, the outgoing Democratic governor, would be the first Jewish governor in North Carolina history; he’s already the first Jewish person to hold statewide office there.
Stein has called out Robinson’s ultra-MAGA positions repeatedly, and Robinson has, for the most part, dug in further. The North Carolina governorship has tended to be held by a Democrat in a divided government (the state house is controlled by a Republican supermajority). This time, a quite literal fascist is on the ballot.
It is existential work right now to find the language that will stoke the fire of those who believe most ardently in the cause, and will call in those who believe least in it but patriotically fear the loss of the republic — this language is hungering to be found.