Mark Robinson- No lie or character assassination is too big or too small

America's next Donald Trump might be in North Carolina

I don’t care what history says…it didn’t happen….

You can't fight hatred with hatred and expect anyone to listen to you. You can only try to lessen it with humor, wit, truth and commonsense. If that doesn't work run like hell, while they throw rocks at you.

• Shannon L. Alder

Animals don't behave like men,' he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.

• Richard Adams, Watership Down

I don’t know what it is about North Carolina that allows the Tarheel State to produce Right-wing nutjobs like current Lt. Gov. and gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson. There’s something decidedly off about the man, though I’m not qualified to diagnose. That said, I’m pretty sure that whatever it is has a long, difficult-to-pronounce name that’s even harder to spell.

I love North Carolina. It’s a great place to visit, even if its politics are a bit…out there. And when I say “out there,” I mean that North Carolina is beginning to look like it might give Texas a run for its money regarding Right-wing malevolence, mean-spiritedness, and just plain crazy.

Remember, for most of the Far-Right, the cruelty IS the point. That’s a lesson that the North Carolina GOP is taking to heart. And few North Carolina Republicans have done that with more enthusiasm than Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, whose emotional and social IQs hover just barely north of zero.

It’s bad enough that far-right bigot Mark Robinson is the current lieutenant governor of North Carolina, a state I quite enjoy, but Robinson…is now running for governor. There are five other Republicans competing against him in next year’s primary, but Robinson has built a comfortable, perhaps insurmountable lead. During the state party convention in Greensboro, former president and felony indictment collector Donald Trump threw his support behind Robinson, who he called “one of the great stars of the party, one of the great stars in politics.”

It’s no wonder he’s a rising Republican star who’s earned Trump’s approval: Robinson is a dirtbag who loves smearing women, especially Black women. Jennifer Bendery at Huffington Post writes, “A review of his Facebook posts over the years reveals a pattern of offensive and disgusting language in the way he talks about prominent women, including former First Lady Michelle Obama, singer Taylor Swift and Vice President Kamala Harris.”

This isn’t surprising for a guy who claims political inspiration from still-dead Rush Limbaugh. He’s repeatedly called Michelle Obama a man, which is simultaneously transphobic and racist.

He said she speaks “ghetto” and “wookie,” referring to the language that Chewbacca speaks in Star Wars. He called her “an angry, anti-American communist black lady” and said that she emanates “the stench of human waste.”

Robinson also scores exceptionally low on the empathy scale, sometimes offensively so.

He’s shown himself to be dangerously disconnected from the realities of gun violence, displaying an appalling lack of sympathy for the victims and survivors of gun violence and their loved ones.

October First marked six years since a man opened fire on a concert crowd in Las Vegas, killing 58 and wounding several hundred in the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in American history. A few weeks after the horrific tragedy, Mark Robinson cast doubt on the mass shooting, posting on his Facebook page that he was "SERIOUSLY skeptical" about what happened in Las Vegas.

That was not Robinson’s only dehumanizing post about the horrors of gun violence. Just a few months later, he was accusing the student survivors of the Parkland, Florida mass shooting of being actors and calling them “spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN,” “stupid kids,” and “media prosti-tots."

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in Psychology to understand that this is not the rhetoric of a person fit to be the elected leader of a state. It’s the rhetoric of someone with a Messiah complex and serious anger management issues.

Robinson’s rhetoric is not only offensive and shows his utter lack of empathy, but it also reveals his dangerous disconnect from the realities of gun violence in America, raising concerns about his suitability for the role of governor.

Robinson often ignores the influence of lax gun safety laws and the prevalence of firearms on gun violence. In fact, Robinson has blamed mass shootings in America not on guns, but “karma” from abortions.

Furthermore, Robinson’s resistance to common-sense gun safety measures, such as universal background checks, is deeply troubling, and out of touch with where a vast majority of North Carolinians stand.

But Robinson also has some other troubling issues in his background. While he’s willing to put his record as a Conservative Republican Black American front and center, he’s less forthcoming about some of his past statements. And, of course, there are others he’s quite proud of that are anything but mainstream.

It’s as if he’s created controversy to lift him above the crowd of candidates. And he’s been quite proud of that controversy.

“I was supposed to be crushed by racism as a Black man in the south,” he said. “I have a chance to be a symbol to others in humble beginnings, and despite what anyone else may tell you, you can achieve anything.”

A former factory worker and daycare operator, Robinson gained public attention from a viral video of a 2018 anti-gun control speech. His critics have pointed to speeches in churches and on radio shows that touched on his antipathy toward LGBTQ+ activism and support for banning abortion.

At a church in 2021, Robinson said: “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth.”

Robinson hasn’t apologized, saying he wasn’t attacking the LGBTQ+ community but commenting on reading materials in public schools. He has said he can separate his religious views from the responsibilities of office.

Robinson said on Saturday he wants to make North Carolina a “destination state for life”, including support for preventing abortions about six weeks after fertilization. State law now bans nearly all abortions after 20 weeks.

Unfortunately, Robinson, like too many Republicans, has shown himself more than willing to lie about President Joe Biden to make himself look more patriotic.

If Robinson or his staff had bothered to do 30 seconds of research on da Interwebz (roughly the amount of time it took me), they would’ve learned that the President didn’t “give” $6 billion to Iran.

CNN — The Iranian government now has access to $6 billion of their funds to be used for humanitarian purposes as a part of a wider deal that allowed five Americans who had been imprisoned in Iran to go free.

The money – which had been held in restricted accounts in South Korea before being transferred to different restricted accounts in Qatar via banks in Europe – is a a key part of the deal. Iranian and US officials were notified by Qatar on Monday that the transfer had finished, according to a source briefed on details of the matter.

While the Iranian government claims it can use the money however it pleases, the Biden administration has repeatedly stressed that the funds are narrowly limited to non-sanctionable purchases like food and medicine, and that they will be subject to strict oversight.

Moreover, US officials have made clear that the funding, which is Iran’s, not from US taxpayer dollars, is not under the control of the Iranian government.

By all indications, Mark Robinson appears to be a Black version of The Former Guy- a man who will do and/or say whatever he must- to get where he wants to. A lack of integrity is no obstacle and may often be a boon to his cause. If he lies fast enough and long enough, people will eventually stop fact-checking him because they can’t keep up.

Whether through bluster, bullying, or unapologetic dishonesty, Robinson will do what he needs to. Winning isn’t everything; it’s the ONLY thing, and though he portrays himself as a Christian, there’s nothing Christ-like about him.

People are attracted to him for the same reasons they flocked to The Former Guy- he hates the same people they do…which is ironic, given the color of Robinson’s skin. Given his origin story and his status as a Black Republican, Robinson could probably have a decent opportunity to be a uniter- IF he chose to use his power and position to bring people together.

Instead, he’s become a power-hungry egomaniac who lacks integrity and empathy. Mark Robinson is all about Mark Robinson. He’s ambitious, ruthless, and willing to climb over whatever bodies he needs to so that he may get to where he wants to be.

Robinson has excelled at one thing while serving as Lt. Gov.- getting his picture taken. He hasn’t done much else, and there’s no reason to believe he’ll accomplish anything positive if elected Governor. Given his virulently anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion beliefs, North Carolinians can probably count on their state becoming even more hostile to women and the LGBTQ community.

His campaign has been about what he’ll do to and take away from people and much less about what he’ll do for the people of North Carolina.

Because Robinson knows who will comprise his base- White Conservative Christian cisgender heterosexuals, and he’ll cater to them as often and as much as he needs to. As a charismatic populist and a confirmed homophobe and hater, he’ll keep the fires of hatred and bigotry burning intensely to remain in power.

Meanwhile, the things that need attention in North Carolina will remain secondary to Mark Robinson’s growing ambitions.

Coming soon to a Presidential ticket near you….

(All of my posts are now public. Any reader financial support will be considered pledges- support that’s greatly appreciated but not required to get to all of my work. I’ll leave it to my readers to determine if my work is worthy of their monetary support and at what level. To those who do offer their support, thank you. It means more than you know.)