Republicans might disavow Mark Robinson now, but they elevated him knowing his extremism.
At a rally in Greensboro on March 2, Donald Trump endorsed Mark Robinson’s bid to become governor of North Carolina by describing the candidate as “Martin Luther King on steroids.” Trump added, “I told that to Mark. I said, ‘I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two.’” For Robinson, this was surely bittersweet praise. Robinson was already on track to win the Republican gubernatorial nomination, and Trump’s extravagant paean would seal the deal. Since Robinson had very much styled himself as a maverick MAGA candidate, being celebrated by Trump was surely gratifying.
What might have stuck in Robison’s craw, though, was the comparison with MLK. Although he’s Black, Robinson is no fan of the martyred civil rights leader. In a riveting report published by CNN on Thursday, Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck document that on private pornography message boards Robinson often made shocking statements expressing sympathy for racism and white supremacy. In 2011, when President Barack Obama participated in the dedication of a memorial to King, Robinson posted, “Get that f*cking commie bastard off the National Mall!” Robinson also wrote, “I’m not in the KKK. They don’t let blacks join. If I was in the KKK I would have called him Martin Lucifer Koon!”
These comments were made under a pseudonym and Robinson denies making them, claiming that the CNN report is a fabrication. But the digital fingerprints that CNN presented as evidence for Robinson’s authorship are compelling.
The King remarks are only a small fraction of what CNN uncovered. In 2010, Robinson also described himself as a “black Nazi” and claimed, “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few.” Two years later, he wrote, “I’d take Hitler over any of the sh*t that’s in Washington right now!”
In the lesser realm of hypocrisy, Robinson expressed enjoyment of pornography starring trans women—a preference newsworthy only because, in his current capacity as lieutenant governor of North Carolina, he has been virulently anti-trans. Robinson also recalled being a teenage Peeping Tom who spied on teenage girls taking showers at a public gym.
Rumors of the CNN report threw Robinson’s campaign into a crisis, with Republicans pressuring him to drop out before midnight Thursday—the deadline to remove him from the ballot. But now Republicans are stuck with him. North Carolina is a swing state, so Robinson’s extremism could drag down votes in the presidential contest as well as races downballot. It is, one can plausibly argue, a liability for a political party to have a state standard-bearer who is an avowed Nazi—even in the age of Donald Trump.
Yet it’s hard to feel sorry for Republicans. Mark Robinson might be a political monster, but he is a monster that was specifically selected, groomed, and elevated by the Republican Party of North Carolina—a process that was then repeated by the national party.
Any political party can have its share of embarrassing, scandal-prone, and corrupt politicians. Certainly the Democrats—the party of John Edwards, Rod Blagojevich, and Robert Menendez—hold no high moral ground. But what is distinct about Robinson is that all his major faults were known to the party even as they elevated him. The CNN report has added
