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robinson, mark lt gov

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beaten 2024 by 15 pts in state trump took

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see lt gov format

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rww

01/31/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

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Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson moved to have his defamation lawsuit against CNN returned to state court after the case was removed to federal court in November.

In a motion filed Monday, attorneys for Robinson argued the cable network failed to meet its burden when it filed for the case’s removal to the District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. They wrote that CNN failed to establish that it had the “unambiguous consent” of a former pornography store employee — Louis Love Money, the other defendant in the suit — and that its assertion the claims against Money and CNN were improperly combined into a single lawsuit lacked support.

“CNN’s notice of removal is woefully insufficient,” Robinson’s attorneys wrote. “Even ignoring the procedural deficiency of not establishing unanimous consent, CNN ignored key holdings from controlling authority about the standard for establishing fraudulent joinder.”

The motion pointed to a statement that “this notice is filed with the consent of all Defendants” in the removal notice, which it argued was inadequate as it did not explicitly reference Money.

Robinson requested the case be returned to the Superior Court of Wake County, where it was initially filed, and that CNN pay reasonable attorneys’ fees for the additional expense of the fight over removal. CNN gave notice of removal to federal court on Nov. 14 and a week later, moved to dismiss the case on the grounds that Robinson’s allegations did not meet the legal standard of defamation.

Once a notice of removal is filed by a defendant, the federal court immediately takes over jurisdiction of the case — moving to remand the case back to state court, as Robinson did Monday, is the first opportunity a plaintiff has to oppose such a procedure.

In the initial notice of removal, CNN argued it was improper for its statements to be challenged in the same case as Money’s, as the media company “is not affiliated with Money in any way,” nor did anyone from the company interview him. His claims — that Robinson was a frequent customer of the Greensboro porn store where he worked and spent exorbitant amounts of money in doing so — were first published by The Assembly.

“Money is named in this lawsuit for one purpose and one purpose only — to defeat diversity jurisdiction and preclude removal,” attorneys for CNN wrote. Robinson’s gambit, however, fails because Money is fraudulently joined in this action. Not only is there no connection between Money and CNN, but also there is no possibility that Robinson can succeed on his claims against Money. Jurisdiction is, therefore, proper in this Court.”

Because CNN is a Delaware corporation and headquartered in Atlanta, the only reason Robinson was able to bring his claims against the company in North Carolina state court in the first place is by bringing them alongside the claims against Money, who is a North Carolina resident.

Attorneys for Robinson wrote that it was not improper to bring the claims in a single lawsuit as the allegedly defamatory statements were “close in time and subject matter,” a standard that has been used to unite other suits lacking a direct connection between defendants under Fourth Circuit law.

Because “the false allegations from CNN and Money, directly and by implication, both suggest that Lt. Gov. Robinson is a sexual deviant,” his attorneys argue, and both came in the immediate lead-up to the election, he will have to make very similar legal arguments in both — necessitating a joint suit.

The outcome of this motion will determine where the legal battle over CNN’s bombshell report that exposed years of controversial comments from an account linked to Robinson on the porn forum Nude Africa — including statements that he was “a black NAZI!” and spied on women’s showers in his youth — will take place.

Robinson has vehemently denied that the account, under the username “minisoldr,” belongs to him. He alleges that the report is defamatory under the “actual malice” standard — in other words, that its claims are false and were published with “reckless disregard” for the truth. After the report, Robinson’s campaign leadership resigned en masse and he collapsed in the polls, setting the stage for a 15-point landslide victory by Attorney General Josh Stein.

CNN noted that Robinson had used the same username on other websites, including in a screenshot on his personal Facebook account, and that the account on Nude Africa listed the name “mark robinson,” his email address, and his hometown of Greensboro.

Robinson may have undercut his protests last week outside of the courtroom. The Assembly reported that when he attended a meeting of the Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies through Google Meet, the username he joined with was a familiar one: “minisoldr.”

Mark Robinson’s campaign fined 35K for hundreds of violations

an 12 24

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denied minisoldr handle, then just used it 12 24 troll? fail?

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an 11 24

The 2024 presidential election was particularly bleak for Democrats, as Republicans swept every battleground state in the Electoral College and even won the popular vote for the first time in 20 years. But at the state level, Democratic candidates notched several big wins that will allow the party to have a few extra arrows in its quiver over the next few years.

The Guardian reported that in multiple state legislatures — including statehouses in several key swing states — Democrats are now well-positioned to use their new gains to frustrate President-elect Donald Trump's agenda in their own backyards. In addition to keeping three governorships in Democratic hands, the party also managed to flip numerous Republican seats in both chambers of several state capitols.

Some of the bigger marquee wins include keeping their one-seat majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, despite Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) losing at the federal level. In North Carolina, Democrats elected Attorney General Josh Stein to become the next governor. Stein dispatched Republican nominee Mark Robinson by a whopping 14-point margin despite Harris losing the Tar Heel State by more than 173,000 votes. North Carolina Democrats also managed to finally wipe out Republicans' legislative supermajority, meaning Stein's future vetoes can't be overridden.

READ MORE:[Mark Robinson on track for 'largest defeat in more than 40 years' of any NC gov candidate

Daniel Squadron, who is the co-founder of the States Project, told the Guardian that Democratic state legislative candidates outperforming Harris was likely due to both their reliance on face-to-face campaigning, and on the high quality field of state house and senate candidates across the country.

"That is the only way it was possible to hold the Pennsylvania house when the statewide results were so disappointing," Squadron said. "It’s the reason the North Carolina house supermajority was broken."

One of the most significant victories for Democrats on election night was in Wisconsin, where Democrats flipped 10 seats in the state assembly and four seats in the state senate. This win notably came a year after the Wisconsin Supreme Court — which has a 4-3 liberal majority — struck down Republicans' heavily gerrymandered state legislative maps in favor of fairer ones.

According to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, Wisconsin's prior legislative districts were among the most unfair in the United States, with Princeton giving "F" grades to both the state assembly map and the state senate map in 2022. Vox writer Ian Millhiser referred to the Badger State's old maps "America's worst gerrymander" in 2023. Democrats are poised to make additional gains in the Wisconsin legislature in the 2026 elections, when the governor's mansion will also be on the line.

READ MORE:**'America's worst gerrymander' official overturned by Wisconsin Supreme Court**

Andrew Whitley, who is the executive director of the Wisconsin senate Democratic caucus, attributed his party's gains to candidates' deep knowledge of local issues in their own respective districts. He also pointed out that candidates were able to use hot-button national issues like abortion bans to convince voters to send them to the capitol.

“It’s very rare when you have bottom-of-the-ticket state legislators over-perform Kamala and Senator [Tammy] Baldwin,” Whitley said. “They worked their a—es off.”

“It’s going to be truly historic,” he added. “Gone are the days where a manufactured majority can override vetoes and pass super-regressive policies. We’re actually going to have some balance, and we’re on the cusp of not only having a balanced legislature, but a trifecta.”

Click here to read the Guardian's full article.

READ MORE:[Ex-North Carolina GOP gov admits Republicans knew Mark Robinson was a 'ticking time bomb'

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Two pro-Trump officials pushed conspiracy theory that Hurricane Helene was done through weather “manipulation”

Georgia GOP official Kandiss Taylor also alleged that Helene was created or manipulated “to keep Mark Robinson from that governorship”

Written by Eric Hananoki

Published 10/08/24 mma

Far-right commentators Kandiss Taylor and Lucretia Hughes, respectively officials for the Georgia Republican Party and pro-Trump group Veterans for America First, pushed fringe conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene, including claiming that it “could have been done by the government” through weather “manipulation” and as a “land grab” to steal lithium.

On her podcast, Taylor also claimed that the hurricane was created or manipulated “to keep Mark Robinson from that governorship because he understands … the Constitution” and that “terrifies every single establishment politician in this country.”

Numerous conspiracy theories have circulated about Hurricane Helene and have included claims that the government somehow created or manipulated the hurricane through weather modification or weather control. (Media Matters reported yesterday that Clay Clark, a Trump event organizer and close friend of Eric Trump, also pushed the “weather manipulation” conspiracy theory.)

Taylor is the elected District 1 chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party, a “key” post in the state. She has met with former President Donald Trump and is helping his election efforts in Georgia.

Taylor has a history of making antisemitic remarks: She complained that Jewish people are “controlling everything” and alleged that “we have some Marxist trash using our R who pander to the Jews.”

Hughes is a national ambassador for Veterans for America First, a right-wing group that’s supporting Trump. The group recently said that Hughes will “speak with President Trump” at an upcoming event. The Trump campaign has touted her endorsement and listed her as part of its Gun Owners for Trump coalition. Turning Point USA, a key Trump campaign ally, also lists Hughes as one of its “activist partners.”

The two appeared on Taylor’s October 5 program, where they promoted conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene. (Taylor’s show airs on the Stew Peters Network, an outlet led by Hitler-praising Holocaust denier and Taylor’s “best friend” Stew Peters.)

Hughes began by calling the hurricane “a land grab,” saying, “I'm so angry with all of this. This is not the United States that I grew up in. This is the United States that has gotten into bed with the global society, trying to rip us off for our sovereignty and get illegal land grabs at the same dang old time.” Taylor responded by stating: “Yeah, lithium specifically. I'm so disgusted with North Carolina and what's going on there.”

Taylor later said that the hurricane “could have been done by the government if they'd been doing the weather manipulation, which we know there were acts passed. There's been things printed and done in the legislation for weather modification. So how do we know, how do we know that all their manipulation didn't cause this?”

The government has not controlled Hurricane Helene through weather manipulation and has not attempted to steal lithium from North Carolina through this tragedy.

Further into the program, Taylor bizarrely claimed that “the whole thing in North Carolina” was somehow done “to keep Mark Robinson from that governorship.”

Video

CitationFrom the October 5, 2024, edition of Jesus. Guns. And Babies

KANDISS TAYLOR (HOST): I really did think about this, Lucretia. Like the whole thing with North Carolina, I know though it’s a grab for the land — land grab and they want the lithium. But I also believe they don't want the voters turning out that are all around Asheville. Those Republican, red voters. They didn't, they are trying their best to keep Mark Robinson from that governorship because he understands — oh, I feel the Holy Spirit — he understands the Constitution. He understands state sovereignty. He understands we are the United States of America. And as a state, we're sovereign. As a state, we should be able to function on our own. As a state, we can push back. We're joined because we choose to be. But a state has sovereignty, and Mark understands that. And it terrifies every single establishment politician in this country.

Toward the end of the show, Hughes added to the weather manipulation subject by stating:

LUCRETIA HUGHES: That's so scary, to know they can manipulate our weather. To know they have the equipment and the satellite images and the satellite stuff to do it. To know that 5G is a real thing. Knowing that HAARP antennas is literally up there in the Arctic right now. I don't understand how people not know when you can type in seeding a cloud, or rain cloud machines, and there are video after video of them turning on a big old machine. And it's huge. And next thing you know, smoke just start coming out this machine and it spits clouds, spits clouds. And they keep it on for about one or two hours and all of it just goes up in the air. He said about, he said, “I give it a day. It’s going to be two states over.” The United States has patents in the patent office for them been doing this for decades now. Decades, y'all. This ain't new.

Taylor replied by saying, “It’s not new, and we're just learning about it because they didn't want us to know about it.”

an 10 24

Mark Robinson, the GOP gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina and current lieutenant governor, is in trouble again.

Not just because Robinson has referred to himself as a “black NAZI” and a “perv,” expressed support for reinstating slavery, said he watched transgender pornography, called homosexuality “filth” and the Holocaust “hogwash,” and has asserted that “some folks need killing.”

He’s in trouble now because he blew off a vote on a declaration that would have granted Governor Roy Cooper key emergency powers ahead of Hurricane Helene’s landfall. Robinson was the only member on the Council of State — a board of nine — who didn’t vote in favor of the declaration. Cooper got the power he needed, but Robinson is now criticizing him for not doing more in the wake of the storm.

Yet Robinson still commands the support of 63 percent of Republicans in North Carolina, according to an East Carolina University poll released Wednesday.

Something seriously troubling has happened to the Republican Party. It’s become filled with wacko candidates for office who are being supported by large percentages of Republican voters.

The trend started in the 1980s with Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, which attracted a wide audience with a toxic mixture of lies, conspiracy theories, fear-mongering, and thinly veiled racism.

It accelerated in 1996 when Rupert Murdoch hired Roger Ailes to emulate Limbaugh with a new TV channel, Fox News. Additional media imitators followed.

The growing supply of this poison offered the (predominantly) white working-class an easy explanation for why the wages and status of many blue-collar men had hit the skids: They could blame immigrants, Black people, Latinos, “coastal elites,” government bureaucrats, pedophiles, women, secularists, Muslims, liberals, Democrats, and Satan.

In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich saw an opportunity to build the Republican Party around similar lies and conspiracy theories. Gingrich’s efforts attracted the first group of modern crackpot candidates into the GOP.

Starting in 2016, Trump attracted another group, even wackier than the previous one.

It’s become a doom loop. As both the demand and the supply of these lies, conspiracy theories, fear-mongering, and racism have grown, the Republican Party’s base has ventured farther from reality. Meanwhile, sane Republicans have left, reasonable people have drifted away, and normal Republican officials have been purged or voted out.

If Trump loses the 2024 election, the Republican Party won’t change, because its base is filled with this poison. So it will continue to attract more crackpot candidates loaded with even more venom; it will nominate them, and some of them will win.

In the current election cycle, the poison doesn’t begin or end with Trump. It includes a Republican vice presidential candidate who calls women who choose not to have children “childless cat ladies,” claims Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets, won’t concede that Trump lost the 2020 election, and won’t commit to be bound by the outcome of the 2024 election.

It’s produced a slew of Republican candidates for Congress saying similar things. In Ohio, Senator Sherrod Brown’s Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, is parroting the same racist lies about Haitian immigrants.

In Arizona, the Republican candidate for Senate, Kari Lake, has denied the outcome of the 2020 election, tried to overturn the governor’s race she lost in 2022, appeared at QAnon and white nationalist-tied events, and has a history of violent rhetoric.

Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia has called abortion “elective surgery” and compared it to a “Hollywood nose job.”

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who was at Trump’s January 6 rally and appears to have been among the insurrectionists who breached police barricades at the Capitol, calls abortion “genocide.”

Arizona Republican Rep. Eli Crane is promoting conspiracy theories about the assassination attempts on Trump — blaming a mole within Trump’s Secret Service detail and saying that the FBI can’t be trusted to “give us the truth”; that the shooter in Butler, Pennsylvania, didn’t act alone; and that the gunman behind the second attempt is an “asset” of a foreign adversary — despite evidence contradicting all these theories.

Back in North Carolina, Michele Morrow, the current Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction, has been warning voters about a network of child traffickers and pedophiles that, she says, torture and kill children to harvest their blood for an anti-aging elixir known as adrenochrome.

Morrow says the plus sign in LGBTQ+ “includes PEDOPH*L*A!!” She claims that transgender therapy is “a disgusting plan of Big Pharma to make our children unable to reproduce” and that the World Health Organization has been using vaccines to sterilize people and kill children. She says Satan is “in cahoots” with Democrats, globalists, the “one world order,” the United Nations, China, and Russia “to take down the United States of America.”

Morrow discourages parents from sending their kids to public schools, which she refers to as “indoctrination centers” and “socialism centers.” She was on the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021, and proposed then that Trump invoke the Insurrection Act, which, she said, “completely puts the Constitution to the side and says, ‘Now the military rules all.’”

Despite all this, Morrow has an even chance to become the state’s top educator. A poll by Raleigh-based WRAL last month found that she is in a statistical tie with her Democratic opponent.

You see the problem. When the base of one of our two political parties both fuels and is fueled by crackpots, some of those crackpots get elected.

The only way forward is with an entirely new Republican Party that rejects and detoxifies the old one and puts an end to this doom loop. Will Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, and some as yet unknown young politicians lead the way?

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Trump ally Sebastian Gorka defends Mark Robinson during interview: “I hope you sue [CNN] into the ground. … I hope you win.”

09/27/24 mma

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staffers bail after blk nAZI

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JUDD 9 24 YMAIL

Mark Robinson delivers remarks at a campaign event for Donald Trump on August 14, 2024, in Asheville, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Baldwin/Getty Images)

Even before securing the Republican nomination for Governor of North Carolina in March, Mark Robinson had a long and well-documented record of promoting conspiracy theories, maligning LGBTQ people, using anti-Semitic tropes, and demeaning women. Popular Information reviewed Robinson's record previously:

In June 2021, for example, Robinson called LGBTQ people "filth" and said exposure to LGBTQ people and issues in schools was child abuse. In a sermon later that year, Robinson said "straight" couples were "superior" to same-sex couples and compared being gay to "what the cows leave behind." Robinson has also called LGBTQ people “devil-worshiping child molesters.”

On Facebook, Robinson repeatedly minimized the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. "I am so sick of seeing and hearing people STILL talk about Nazis and Hitler and how evil and manipulative they were," Robinson wrote on Facebook in 2017. He accused unknown forces of "pushing this Nazi boogeyman narrative all these years."

In 2019, Robinson said that abortion rights were "not about protecting the lives of mothers" but "about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down." Robinson said women choose to have an abortion so that they can keep living "on easy street" and "keep running to the club every Friday night.” He favors an abortion ban from the moment of conception.

None of this prevented the Republican Governors Association (RGA) from throwing its support behind Robinson. In a post on X on March 5, the day Robinson won the Republican nomination, RGA chairman Governor Bill Lee (R-TN) congratulated Robinson and said the organization "look[s] forward to supporting him in the general election."

The RGA has followed through. Data from AdImpact, a company that monitors political ad spending, obtained by Popular Information, reveals that the RGA, an affiliated PAC, and an affiliated non-profit have spent more than $17.3 million since June 11, 2024 on ads in support of Robinson. The money has financed over 20,000 ads across North Carolina supporting Robinson's candidacy. The actual expenditure by the RGA is far higher, as the $17.3 million does not include the cost of producing the ads, polling, or any other activities taken on behalf of Robinson.

The amount that the RGA has spent running ads to boost Robinson's candidacy in the last few months exceeds the total that Robinson's campaign has reported raising this campaign cycle ($15,757,019.87).

On Thursday, CNN reported that in a series of posts on a pornographic message board, Robinson referred to himself as a "Black NAZI" and expressed support for reinstating slavery. He also described spying on women in public gym showers and described himself as a "perv." A separate report in the Washington Post revealed that Robinson, using the same message board, praised Hitler's Mein Kampf, calling it a "good read."

Since that bombshell report, the RGA has not made any statement regarding Robinson's candidacy but, according to AdImpact data, the RGA's ads in support of Robinson's gubernatorial campaign have continued to run across North Carolina.

Where does the RGA get all the cash to support Robinson? Much of it comes from major corporations, which can donate unlimited amounts to so-called 527 groups like the RGA. While corporate donations to federal candidates come from voluntary contributions from employees to corporate PACs, corporate donations to 527s come directly from the corporate treasury. In other words, the revenue these companies receive from customers is being diverted to bolster Robinson's candidacy.

During this election cycle, for example, DoorDash has donated $625,000 to the RGA. This money has been used to support Robinson and other Republican gubernatorial candidates. DoorDash's support of Robinson, who has repeatedly maligned LGBTQ people with crude rhetoric, through the RGA, is not consistent with the company's carefully crafted public image.

The company regularly features LGBTQ-owned restaurants that deliver using DoorDash. On June 1, 2024, the company posted a blog post celebrating Pride Month. DoorDash said that it would spend the month "celebrating the diversity and vibrancy within the LGBTQ+ community by emphasizing how race, gender, sexuality, ability, and other aspects intersect to form unique individual identities." The blog post claimed that DoorDash, "will continue to prioritize investing in and advancing opportunities for historically underrepresented people."

On June 4, 2024, the RGA received a $250,000 contribution from DoorDash. These funds, along with other large corporate contributions, helped finance the RGA's ad blitz in support of Robinson that started later in June.

Like many companies that support the RGA, DoorDash also made six-figure contributions to the Democratic Governors Association (DGA). But these contributions are not equivalent. The DGA is not supporting any gubernatorial candidates that have called themselves a Nazi or advocated for the reinstatement of slavery.

DoorDash did not respond to a request for comment.

Other major corporations backing Robinson through the RGA

Many of the most prominent corporations in America are supporting Robinson's candidacy through the RGA. This has been a critical source of funding for Robinson because, due to his long record of extremism, Robinson has struggled to raise funds even before the publication of the CNN story. He has been badly outraised by his opponent, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D). Just as the RGA started its $17 million ad blitz on Robinson's behalf, Robinson's campaign only had about $6.5 million in cash on hand — money that had to be used to cover all the campaign's expenses, including staff and travel.

Top corporate contributors to the RGA this cycle include Google ($585,000), Walmart ($570,000), CVS ($550,000), Microsoft ($550,000), Travelers Insurance ($460,000), Amazon ($450,000), Deloitte ($400,000), Charter Communications ($385,000), Oracle ($325,000), Pfizer ($300,000), Coca-Cola ($250,000), The Motion Picture Association ($250,000), and Wells Fargo ($250,000).

Popular Information contacted each of these companies and asked if they had any concerns that their contributions to the RGA were being used to support a candidate like Robinson.

Wells Fargo declined to comment. The other companies did not respond.

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9 24 gizmodo

Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina and current lieutenant governor of the state, spent years making extreme and embarrassing comments on a porn forum, according to a new report from CNN Thursday. And while Robinson is denying the comments are actually his and Gizmodo can’t independently confirm their accuracy, CNN provides some compelling evidence, including the fact that Robinson apparently used his real full name.

The controversial comments were made under the username “minisoldr” from 2008-2012 on a site called Nude Africa, which has the aesthetics of a 1990s Geocities site. CNN notes that Robinson used the name minisoldr elsewhere on the internet. The report notes accounts on YouTube, X, and Pinterest that share the name.

So what kind of comments was Robinson allegedly making? The lieutenant governor appears to express a desire to own slaves, calls himself a “black Nazi,” and rails against the installation of a monument to civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., writing, “Get that f*cking commie bastard off the National Mall!”

Robinson, who has previously called LGBTQ people “filth” in 2023, also appears to repeatedly use anti-gay slurs and expressed an interest in trans porn in the comments, according to CNN.

“I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson allegedly wrote. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”

It’s not immediately clear if CNN chose to censor the word “fucking” or if that’s how it was originally written. It’s made all the more confusing by the fact that Robinson appears to have put scare quotes around the word “perv” in his post about trans people.

The site Robinson was allegedly commenting on boasts that it has all of Nude Africa’s archives dating to 1998, which makes so much sense when you look at the site’s visual style. It’s a sparse site with antiquated fonts and a bizarre layout. The entire vibe is 1990s web chic. But, again, Robinson denies the comments made on the porn site from 2008-2012 are his.

“This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not anything that is characteristic of me,” Robinson said, according to CNN, though it’s unclear why he would say “us” and “our” when talking about himself.

There have been calls for Robinson to drop out of his race for governor, perhaps largely driven by the fact that he’s behind in many polls against Democratic challenger, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein. Robinson is trailing Stein by double digits in most polls, according to FiveThirtyEight. But Robinson told CNN in a segment that aired Thursday he had no plans to drop out.

IFrame Content

Robinson has been a controversial candidate from the start, suggesting that he’d like to return to a time before women could vote. Robinson also shared extremely antisemitic ideas, quoting Adolf Hitler and dabbling in some light Holocaust denial. He later expressed some regret about those comments writing a non-apology in his memoir, according to People magazine, saying “It did come out wrong. I knew the truth of what I was trying to say, but I should have chosen different words.”

Robinson also supports a complete ban on abortion, though he apologized for paying for his wife’s abortion in the 1980s. Republican presidential candidate and convicted felon Donald Trump has previously celebrated Robinson, telling a rally back in March that he was “Martin Luther King on steroids” and “Martin Luther King times two,” according to footage from the event.

It’s unclear if this latest controversy will cause Robinson to drop out. But it’d be pretty wild if this was the thing that did it. It’s not like Robinson’s previous controversies were any less insane.

  1. ### Newsmax's Greg Kelly defends Mark Robinson after bombshell reporting: “Sir, remain strong”

09/20/24 8:57 AM EDT

  1. ### Greg Gutfeld defends Mark Robinson amid reports he called himself a “Black Nazi” and spied on women in public gyms

09/19/24 5:46 PM EDT

Right-wing media have lavished praise on embattled Mark Robinson during his NC gubernatorial campaign

Right-wing media figures on Robinson: “Not afraid to say what he is thinking, which I think we need more of”; “he’s got spirit, he’s got gusto”; “he’s like a hero of the internet”

Written by Eric Hananoki

Research contributions from Jason Campbell, Alex Kaplan & John Whitehouse

Published 09/19/24 mma

Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson is reportedly facing calls to drop out of his race due to an impending bombshell story that could torpedo his candidacy. Some of Robinson's biggest supporters have been prominent right-wing media figures, including people Donald Trump Jr., Dan Bongingo, and Charlie Kirk.

Robinson is a right-wing commentator who became lieutenant governor of North Carolina in January 2021. He has a history of toxic remarks, including about women and LGBTQ people.

Media Matters previously uncovered that Robinson claimed in 2018 that Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby were victims of a left-wing “plot” to destroy them for their “so-called sexual crimes.” Robinson also called on his followers to “stand up against” the supposed “plot to build up a climate of fear, to shut people's mouths.” Media Matters also reported that he said mass shootings are “karma” for allowing abortion.

Despite his well-known history of extremist remarks, Robinson has gotten support from numerous Republicans. That list includes former President Donald Trump, who endorsed him by claiming he’s “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

Since Robinson began running for governor last year, numerous right-wing media figures have endorsed him with strong praise. Here is a look at those remarks prior to today's reporting about Republicans urging him to leave the race.

Donald Trump Jr. said “we need more” people like Robinson who are “not afraid to say” what they’re thinking. During his Rumble show, Trump Jr. said that he likes Robinson and he’s a “good guy, funny guy, not afraid to say what he is thinking, which I think we need more of.”

Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk: “Mark, great work. We have your back.”

Kirk also said of Robinson: “He’s got spirit, he’s got gusto, and I think he’s going to be a great governor of this state.”

Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt: Mark Robinson's “no-BS” style is “very refreshing.” During his March 12 program, Schmitt said: “The left, as you just saw, is going nuts over this guy. The avalanche of attacks against him have been piling up in recent days. A sample of Mark Robinson's no-BS, very refreshing style has never been seen better than in 2021 when he talked about gender ideology.”

Fox-host-turned-streamer Dan Bongino: Outside of Trump, Robinson is “my personal favorite guest” and “favorite candidate.” In a video clip posted to his Rumble account during the Republican National Convention, Bongino introduced Robinson by calling him “my personal favorite guest of all time outside of President Donald J. Trump” and “my favorite candidate in the country outside of President Trump. They’re neck-and-neck.”

Former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka: “We need Mark Robinson in the governorship of North Carolina. … Support this man today.”Interviewing Robinson on his show in March 2024, Gorka added: “He's got my vote if I lived in North Carolina. He's got my support.”

Trump adviser Roger Stone: “Mark Robinson is one of the most dynamic inspiring leaders. I have seen in my 45 years in American politics.” The longtime Republican dirty trickster and right-wing commentator wrote that Robinson “is as great a communicator as Ronald Reagan and he has the courage of Donald Trump. I pray to God that he is elected governor of North Carolina.”

GOP operative Jack Posobiec: “TRUMP-ROBINSON 2024.”The right-wing commentator also wrote online: “Listening to Mark Robinson speeches in the gym.”

Moms For America Action: “We are proud to endorse Mark Robinson for Governor because he is a fellow warrior for freedom and shares the same values of faith and family as Moms for America.”The political side of right-wing group Moms for America wrote a press release endorsing Robinson in September 2023 that stated ,in part: “We are proud to endorse Mark Robinson for Governor because he is a fellow warrior for freedom and shares the same values of faith and family as Moms for America.”

Newsmax’s Carl Higbie: “For those of you who don’t know @markrobinsonNC, he is the next Star!!!” Higbie added that “he is now the likely next Governor of North Carolina.”

Former Trump national security adviser and right-wing commentator Mike Flynn: “I stand and fully support this great PATRIOT to be the next Governor of North Carolina! @markrobinsonNC.”

Far-right troll Brenden Dilley: “I’m a big fan of this guy. I’ve met him, he’s a great gentleman. … Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has won the North Carolina Republican primary for governor. That’s your next governor in North Carolina, God willing.”

Actor and right-wing commentator Dean Cain: “Go get ém @markrobinsonNC !! North Carolina needs you for Governor!”

Fox’s Sean Hannity defended Robinson, saying “Democrats have been trying to smear, slander, you know, besmirch, attack the lieutenant governor day in and day out."On the March 19 edition of his radio program, Hannity said, “Democrats have been trying to smear, slander, you know, besmirch, attack the lieutenant governor day in and day out. ... I watch what any politician like yourself goes through, and I do wonder. I'm like, why would anybody bother? And I know why you bother because you care.”

Right-wing host Benny Johnson: “I just love the energy of this dude.” After airing Robinson’s campaign ad, Johnsonsaid: “I just love the energy of this dude. And I love his story because he’s like an internet story. He’s like a hero of the internet. Guy just went to a town council meeting, gave a speech, and then is going to become governor. That’s like the stuff of the Founding Fathers.”

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The most extremist Republican running in November isn't Donald Trump - Alternet.org

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wife of MAGA gov candidate in NC was sued for stiffing Girl Scouts out of $3K in cookies](https://www.alternet.org/mark-robinson-girl-scouts/)

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GOP fears 'torrent of negative headlines' over NC gov candidate could cost them the state

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Despite his long history of making extremes statements — from Holocaust denial to saying that women shouldn't have been given the right to vote — far-right MAGA Republican Mark Robinson, according to some polls, is quite competitive in North Carolina's 2024 gubernatorial race. An East Carolina University poll in June found Josh Stein, the Democratic nominee, leading Robinson by only 1 percent.

Robinson has made no effort to soften his image during his gubernatorial campaign. And according to The New Republic's Greg Sargent, the far-right MAGA Republican made some more extreme statements during a June 30 speech in a church in White Lake, North Carolina.

Robinson told the crowd, "Some folks need killing. It's time for somebody to say it. It's not a matter of vengeance. It's not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It's a matter of necessity."

READ MORE: Historian warns Trump 'imperial presidency' will be 'huge shock' to Americans: 'Never been here before'

Sargent notes that those Robinson advocated "killing" included "wicked people" as well as socialists and communists, adding that the North Carolina lieutenant governors has a "long history of wildly radical and unhinged moments."

According to Sargent, "He has linked homosexuality to pedophilia, called for the arrest of trans women, pushed hallucinogenic antisemitic conspiracy theories, endorsed the vile 'birther' conspiracy about Barack Obama, described Michelle Obama as a man, hinted at the need to violently oppose federal law enforcement and the government, and posted memes mocking and denying the brutal, violent assault on Nancy Pelosi's husband, among many other things."

Sargent adds, "His latest rant is yet another example of an ugly game widely played on the MAGA right, one supercharged by Donald Trump. It entails hinting that right-wing political violence is necessary and justified because a ubiquitous, all-seeing, all-powerful leftist threat — one that is pure invention — is already supposedly attacking and persecuting conservatives on a mass scale."

The journalist emphasizes that Robinson's comments are not an anomaly, but part of a pattern of MAGA Republicans calling for violence against political opponents. And he cited Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts as an example.

READ MORE:'Yes off record': Series of 'bombshell' texts by ex-Trump staffer hint at secret payoffs

Roberts recently said of the right-wing think tank's Project 2025, "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

Sargent warns, "In this, Roberts essentially said that if liberals and Democrats too vehemently resist MAGA's intent to stock the government with corrupt loyalists to Trump and unleash mass persecution of the opposition, violence will be necessary to crush them — and if so, it will be their fault for not meekly accepting what they have coming to them."

The journalist adds, "Meanwhile, Trump himself recently suggested that political violence may erupt if the presidential election isn't conducted with 'fairness' and is stolen from him, by which he really means, 'if I don’t win.'"

READ MORE: Several Democratic governors 'not supportive' of Biden staying in 'and want a change': report

*Read Greg Sargent's full New Republic article at this link.

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GOP gubernatorial candidate called Harvey Weinstein a 'sacrificial lamb' and defended Cosby

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organizers for President Joe Biden's reelection campaign have argued that if there is any state Biden has a realistic chance of flipping in 2024, it's North Carolina — which Biden lost to former President Donald Trump by roughly 1 percent in 2020.

Most polls released in May have showed Trump with single-digit leads over Biden in North Carolina, including 2 percent in a High Point University poll. But Cook Political Report and Bloomberg News/Morning Consult have found Trump ahead of Biden by 7 percent there.

In a report published on May 27, the Daily Beast's Jake Lahut examines the possibility that North Carolina's far-right gubernatorial nominee, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, will harm Trump's campaign in that state and improve Biden's chances of a North Carolina victory.

READ MORE: **Students remember Mark Robinson's 'cruel comments' on Parkland shooting anniversary**

Robinson has taken a variety of extreme positions, from Holocaust denial to saying, during a March 2020 event, "I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn't vote."

Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson told the Beast, "He's an opposition researcher's dream…. Mark Robinson is the most extreme candidate for public office, period, in North Carolina — much less the race for governor."

Jackson added, "If you're a CEO and you're thinking of moving your business to North Carolina, and Mark Robinson is the governor, I think your employees are going to tell you they want to go somewhere else."

A Trump ally told the Beast that the former president "likes" Robinson "a lot," but North Carolina-based GOP strategist Paul Shumaker fears that Robinson's campaign could have a "reverse coattails" effect — meaning that North Carolina residents who vote against Robinson will decide to vote against Trump as well rather than splitting their tickets.

READ MORE:**Trump suffered a 'stunning rebuke' in disastrous Saturday night speech: analyst**

Shumaker told the Beast, "The Biden campaign will attempt to tie the two together. Democrats have a major turnout problem, and Trump will distance himself and withdraw his endorsement if Robinson becomes too much of a liability. (I) can't underscore Ds' turnout problems enough."

READ MORE:[Why Alito's response to inverted flag controversy is as troubling as symbol itself: analysis

*Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

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'Divisive' far-right GOP gubernatorial nominee shows no signs of moderation - Alternet.org

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On Super Tuesday, voters in North Carolina picked their gubernatorial nominees to succeed term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper: State Attorney General Josh Stein on the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson on the GOP side.

Stein's campaign has a lot of political ammunition to use against Robinson, a far-right Holocaust denier and Christian nationalist who is stridently anti-gay, has called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a "communist," and believes that women should not have been giventhe right to vote in the United States.

Likely 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has endorsed him, and Democratic strategists are hoping that having someone as extreme as Robinson on North Carolina's ballot will benefit President Joe Biden in the swing state.

READ MORE:['Cowardly': NY Times pummeled for ignoring NC GOP nominee’s Hitler and Holocaust remarks

In an article published on March 11, the Daily Beast's Dan Merica stresses that the Stein campaign has another issue to use against Robinson: health care.

Democrats have been slamming Trump for promising to overturn the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare, if he returns to the White House in January 2025. But Merica points out that Robinson is even to the right of Trump on the ACA, which he considers a plot to "enslave everybody."

"Democrats are eager to focus the race on health care in the southern state, hoping to use Robinson's opposition to the Affordable Care Act and his more recent antipathy to the state expanding Medicaid as a focal point of attacks against the Republican, employing a similar strategy that worked for the party in 2018," Merica explains. "Robinson's particular complaint about the health-care law, signed by President Barack Obama in 2010, was against one of the most popular provisions: the ability for children to stay on their parents' health-care plans until they turned 26 years old."

Trump had high hopes for abolishing Obamacare when the America Health Care Act passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2017, but the bill failed in the U.S. Senate. And in the 2018 midterms, health care was a strong issue for Democrats — who didn't retake the U.S. Senate that year but recaptured the U.S. House of Representatives in a big way.

"Robinson, with his history of bombastic comments, has even argued for a more conservative position on health care than Trump, who made repealing Obamacare a focal point of his successful 2016 campaign and attempted to do just that when he took office in 2017," Merica recalls. "Trump, in a bid to assuage critics who worried that taking away health care with no replacement would be politically detrimental to Republicans, often said he would replace the Affordable Care Act 'with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability'…. He ultimately got on board with a Republican alternative that was projected to kick 23 million people off health insurance, significantly raise prices for people with pre-existing conditions, and send health insurance markets — according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — into an 'unsustainable spiral.'"

READ MORE:[John Oliver smacks down Holocaust-denying GOP candidate and 'racist' Trump

Merica adds, "Robinson, however, advocated for full repeal of the Affordable Care Act with no replacement — an even bleaker alternative."

Merica points out that Stein's campaign is already attacking Robinson on Obamacare.

Elisabeth Greenleaf, campaigns director for Progress North Carolina and a Robinson critic, told the Daily Beast, "I can only imagine he will continue to double down on this stance. And our work is educating voters on the impacts of that. It's going to be a big issue in this race."

READ MORE:**Trump’s call to repeal Obamacare blasted as 'outlandish' as signups hit new record high

*Read The Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

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lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) at a rally for former President Donald Trump on September 23, 2022, in Wilmington, North Carolina. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, Mark Robinson (R) won the Republican nomination for Governor of North Carolina. Robinson, currently North Carolina's lieutenant governor, is one of the most radical gubernatorial nominees in modern history. He has a well-documented record of promoting conspiracy theories, maligning LGBTQ people, using anti-Semitic tropes, and demeaning women.

Robinson has repeatedly minimized the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. "I am so sick of seeing and hearing people STILL talk about Nazis and Hitler and how evil and manipulative they were," Robinson wrote on Facebook in 2017. He accused unknown forces of "pushing this Nazi boogeyman narrative all these years."

He also has veered into Holocaust denial. “The center and leftist leaning Weimar Republic put heavy gun ownership restrictions on German citizens long before the Nazis took power," Robinson wrote in a 2018 Facebook post. "This foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash." Robinson defended himself by claiming he was only referring to the contention that Nazis disarmed Jews as "hogwash." This is not very convincing, since the Nazis did seek to disarm Jews, issuing "Regulations Against Jews Possession of Weapons" in 1938. Overall, "Nazi-era Germany imposed greater gun restrictions for Jews (and other perceived enemies) at the same time it loosened gun restrictions for other groups," according to Politifact.

Robinson’s post was not an isolated incident. “There is a REASON the liberal media fills the airwaves with programs about the NAZI and the ‘6 million Jews’ they murdered,” Robinson wrote on Facebook in 2017. The post is notable for the use of scare quotes around "6 million Jews," suggesting doubts about whether the Holocaust actually happened. Robinson does not use quotes when discussing the millions killed by Communist regimes.

In 2018, Robinson posted an anti-Semitic rant about the movie Black Panther, saying the story was "created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic marxist." Robinson said the purpose of the movie was "to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets," deploying both an anti-Semitic trope and a Yiddish slur.

Major corporations, not eager to associate themselves with Robinson's toxic brand, have refrained from donating directly to Robinson's campaign for governor. Nevertheless, these same corporations are funneling millions in revenue that can and will be deployed to help Robinson win his race.

Here is how it works.

Tuesday night, shortly after Robinson was declared the winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary, the Republican Governors Association posted their congratulations and said, "[W]e look forward to supporting him in the general election."

The RGA is one of the most powerful 527 political organizations in the country. It routinely spends tens of millions of dollars on key races. Robinson will face Attorney General Josh Stein (D) in the general election in what is expected to be one of the closest contests in the country. The RGA has already paid for a slick website attacking Stein.

The RGA has plenty of resources because, unlike many political entities, it can accept unlimited amounts of money from corporations. This is not money that comes from corporate PACs, but funds that are transferred directly from corporate treasuries.

Many of the nation's most prominent corporations have donated 6-figure sums to the RGA — money that can and will be used to help Robinson's win. Major corporate donors to the RGA in 2023 included Microsoft ($400,000), Alphabet (Google’s parent company) ($378,000), CVS ($300,000), Pfizer ($300,000), Amazon ($275,000), Coca-Cola ($259,287), Deloitte ($151,000), and DoorDash ($125,000).

Of course, the RGA will be supporting other candidates this cycle as well, and some are significantly more moderate than Robinson. That's why making large donations to the RGA is such an attractive option for corporations. It allows them to support candidates like Robinson — who may soon be a powerful elected official — without the scrutiny that comes with a direct contribution.

Robinson's bigotry, misogyny, and conspiracy theories

Robinson is also notorious for his anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. He has previously called LGBTQ people “devil worshiping child molesters” and, in 2021 during a church appearance, said that “transgenderism, homosexuality” were “filth.” Following outcries over his comments, Robinson claimed that his remarks were “targeted at LGBTQ-themed books that he wants out of school libraries and aren't against any individuals because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.” But even after the incident, Robinson continued to go on tirades against LGBTQ people. At another church event, he questioned the “purpose of homosexuality” and argued that “[i]t creates nothing.” Straight couples are superior to gay couples, Robinson added. This year, at a campaign event, he suggested that trans women should be arrested if they use women’s restrooms.

Robinson also holds various other fringe views. He believes climate change is “pseudoscience,” thinks Obama’s birth certificate is fake, and once accused a Parkland shooting survivor of being a paid actor. Muslims, Robinson said in a 2017 Facebook post, are “invaders.” He also previously defended Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, both serial sex offenders, saying that they were part of a left-wing conspiracy and that "everyone's got something in their past." He said he "wouldn't be surprised" if the moon landing was faked and 9/11 was an "inside job." And, during a campaign event in 2020, he said he would “absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.”

When it comes to abortion – which Robinson has called a “moral evil, like slavery” – Robinson says that he doesn’t “care if you’re 24 hours pregnant.” He would ban abortions entirely. Once a woman is pregnant, Robinson claims, it’s not their “body anymore.”

The other corporations writing big checks

Other corporate contributors to RGA — and by extension Robinson's candidacy — in 2023 include Charter Communications ($221,000), Humana ($165,500), Motion Picture Association ($162,595), Oracle ($125,000), Walgreens ($101,000), Intuit ($100,000), and The Anschutz Corporation, the parent company of Coachella ($100,000).

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maga-extremists-are-celebrating-mark-robinsons-antisemitism-and-extremism-mainstream

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February 9, 2024 rww

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north Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a far-right MAGA Republican and election denier known for his anti-gay, anti-transgender and anti-Muslim views, appears to be the frontrunner in North Carolina's 2024 GOP gubernatorial primary.

Robinson has never backed down from the Big Lie, maintaining that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump — a false claim that has been repeatedly debunked. And he has been unwavering in his devotion to Trump on the campaign trail.

In an article published on January 11, the Daily Beast's Sam Brodey describes newly obtained documents that "shed light on the extent of his private ties to the movement to contest, overturn, and delegitimize Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 election."

The "zealous election denier," according to Brodey, met with far-right GOP activist Ginni Thomas — a major election denier who is married to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — "weeks after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and Biden's inauguration."

"According to a copy of Robinson's official schedule, which was produced through a Freedom of Information Act request, the lieutenant governor had a meeting with (Ginni) Thomas on March 30, 2021," Brodey explains. "But Robinson didn't just speak with Thomas that afternoon; the calendar note indicates he met with Thomas and a group she helped run called Frontliners for Liberty.

Initially a Facebook group that described itself as 'a new collaborative, liberty-focused, action-oriented group of state leaders representing grassroots armies,' according to CNBC, Frontliners for Liberty morphed into a key organizing venue for far-right activists nationwide working desperately to keep Trump in power — even after Trump was out of office."}:

Brodey adds, "Ultimately, Thomas' group was influential enough for it to draw the scrutiny of the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6. "

The Daily Beast reporter notes that although it's "unclear exactly what Robinson and (Ginni) Thomas discussed in their March 2021 meeting," Robinson has "continued to cast doubt on the election through his rhetoric."

READ MORE:'Start reading some of those quotes': Republican defends Hitler’s and Stalin's writings

"As recently as December 2023," Brodey observes, "Robinson was also downplaying the violent attack on the Capitol, telling a local GOP club that it was 'this minor little thing,' according to audio of the remarks obtained by The Daily Beast…. As Robinson asks voters for the power to lead one of the country's perennial battleground states, the news of his 2021 meeting with Thomas and the Frontliners adds to his record undermining an election many Republicans accept they lost and hope to leave behind."

When he defeated Democratic Yvonne Lewis Holley in North Carolina's lieutenant governor's race in 2020, Robinson became the first African-American to win that position in his state. Robinson, however, has been a very polarizing figure in North Carolina politics, often drawing criticism from both Democrats and Never Trump conservatives for the many inflammatory statements he has made.

The North Carolina Democratic Party has described Robinson as "homophobic, anti-Semitic, and downright unhinged."

"Predictably," Brodey observes, "Robinson's campaign for the North Carolina governorship has made the state's GOP establishment uneasy and delighted the MAGA base."

READ MORE:North Carolina Republicans aren't only anti-freedom but they’re openly racist as well

*Read The Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/north-carolina-guv-frontrunner-mark-robinson-had-secret-meeting-with-ginni-thomas-after-jan-6?ref=home?ref=home}:

Publicly, the Trump-loving lieutenant governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson, has embraced the role of a zealous 2020 election denier.

In April 2021, for instance, Robinson told a crowd that President Joe Biden “stole the election.”

“Yeah, I said that,” Robinson added for effect.

Days before making that declaration, however, Robinson was privately meeting with one of the highest-profile election deniers in the country: Ginni Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Now, as Robinson ramps up his campaign for North Carolina’s governorship in 2024, documents obtained by The Daily Beast shed light on the extent of his private ties to the movement to contest, overturn, and delegitimize Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election—and it’s clear Robinson is an unabashed, unapologetic election denier running in the same circles as other Republicans showing no repentance for stirring up an insurrection.

In fact, Robinson met with Thomas weeks after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and Biden’s inauguration.

According to a copy of Robinson’s official schedule, which was produced through a Freedom of Information Act request, the lieutenant governor had a meeting with Thomas on March 30, 2021.

But Robinson didn’t just speak with Thomas that afternoon; the calendar note indicates he met with Thomas and a group she helped run called Frontliners for Liberty.

Initially a Facebook group that described itself as “a new collaborative, liberty-focused, action-oriented group of state leaders representing grassroots armies,” according to CNBC, Frontliners for Liberty morphed into a key organizing venue for far-right activists nationwide working desperately to keep Trump in power—even after Trump was out of office.

Ultimately, Thomas’ group was influential enough for it to draw the scrutiny of the House Select Committee to Investigate Jan. 6. In December 2020, Trump attorney John Eastman spoke to the group, at Thomas’ invitation, to update them regarding his legal challenges to Biden’s victory. A court-obtained meeting agenda shows Eastman was slated to discuss “state legislative actions that can reverse the media-called election for Joe Biden.”

It’s unclear exactly what Robinson and Thomas discussed in their March 2021 meeting—or exactly who else joined. Since there was no location specified on Robinson’s schedule for the meeting, it may have taken place virtually. Spokespeople for Robinson and Thomas both did not return requests for comment from The Daily Beast.

Even after Biden was inaugurated and the MAGA legal challenges deflated, Thomas and allied far-right activists in her Frontliners group continued to work to undermine the election outcome, according to a *Washington Post*report—important context for her meeting with Robinson.

Robinson also continued to cast doubt on the election through his rhetoric, if not in any formal government action. (Trump narrowly beat Biden in North Carolina in 2020.) In addition to his April 2021 comments, Robinson[] VID ] (https://youtu.be/NkdLquU8xVU) at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference to claim that Biden didn’t win the election.

Mark Robinson, lieutenant governor of North Carolina arrives at a rally for U.S. Senate nominee Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC).

At the gathering, Robinson told activists that 83 million people couldn’t have possibly voted for Biden. “I don’t think 83 million people know who Joe Biden is,” he said. “Joe Biden doesn’t know who Joe Biden is.”

As recently as December 2023, Robinson was also downplaying the violent attack on the Capitol, telling a local GOP club that it was “this minor little thing,” according to audio of the remarks obtained by The Daily Beast.

Robinson’s Trumpian instinct of pushing boundaries in his speech, and reveling in his fans’ acclaim afterward, has been a major factor behind his meteoric rise in North Carolina politics. In 2020, Robinson won the state’s lieutenant governorship with no prior political experience, and he first gained notoriety on the right in 2018, after a pro-gun speech at a Greensboro city council meeting went viral.

Now, Robinson appears to be the GOP favorite to take on Democratic candidate Josh Stein, even though Robinson may be—or potentially because—he’s positioned himself as the most extreme Republican in the field.

As Robinson asks voters for the power to lead one of the country’s perennial battleground states, the news of his 2021 meeting with Thomas and the Frontliners adds to his record undermining an election many Republicans accept they lost and hope to leave behind.

Predictably, Robinson’s campaign for the North Carolina governorship has made the state’s GOP establishment uneasy and delighted the MAGA base. Trump has said he plans to endorse Robinson in the Republican primary. In fact, at a fundraiser he hosted for Robinson in December, the ex-president declared his ally was “better” than Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the GOP primary, Robinson faces businessman Bill Graham, who has won the endorsement of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). If he were to win the primary, Robinson would likely face Attorney General Josh Stein in November. North Carolina is poised to host the most competitive governor race of 2024, with incumbent Gov. Roy Cooper (D) term-limited from running again.

The lieutenant governor’s strident election denialism is just one reason why many operatives—in both parties—believe he could prove toxic in a general election matchup. Few major statewide politicians have amassed a rhetorical record as incendiary and broadly offensive as Robinson.

On his very active Facebook page and elsewhere over the years, Robinson has made a range of comments disparaging Jews, LGBTQ people, Muslims, and women. The deeply homophobic politician has claimed that God “formed” him to fight against LGBTQ rights and has called LGBTQ people “filth.”

In 2018, Robinson said the comic book character Black Panther was created by an “agnostic Jew” to “pull the shekels out of your schvartze pockets”—respectively referring to the Israeli currency and a Yiddish slur for Black people.

In 2020, Robinson conducted an interview with the fringe militant pastor Sean Moon, and expressed his agreement at Moon’s articulation of the conspiracy theory that a cabal of Jewish bankers controls the world. Both debacles earned Robinson the rebuke of Jewish groups, including the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Previously, Robinson also accused Ellen DeGeneres of being a “top-ranking demon,” blamed Bill Cosby’s conviction on sexual assault charges on the Illuminati, mocked the teenage survivors of the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, and made fun of Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, after he survived a violent attack at his home.

Robinson has essentially never apologized for any of his controversial past statements. He did allow that his remarks on Jews and the Black Panther were poorly phrased, but he has vehemently denied any suggestion they were antisemitic.

In some respects, Robinson has cranked up the volume on his rhetoric since launching his campaign for governor—particularly when it comes to the 2020 election and Jan. 6.

In addition to his comments calling Jan. 6 a “minor little thing,” he has vociferously defended Trump’s efforts to undemocratically remain in power. In a December interview on Newsmax, Robinson said efforts to hold Trump accountable were “despicable.” The former president who was impeached for inciting the violence at the Capitol, Robinson said, “did absolutely nothing wrong, in fact, did everything right for the country.”

Adulation for Trump is one quality that Robinson shares with Thomas, who became an integral figure in the sprawling efforts to keep the former president in office.

A well-known right-wing activist married to an icon of the conservative legal movement, Thomas seemed to descend further into a fever swamp of fringe conspiracies before and after the 2020 presidential election.

The Jan. 6 committee obtained texts sent between Thomas and her friend Mark Meadows, then Trump’s chief of staff, which showed her expressing hope in online predictions that the Bidens, election officials, and journalists would be sent to Guantanamo Bay. She also urged Meadows to do more to support Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud to keep him in office.

Not a great deal is known about Thomas’ Frontliners for Liberty group, other than the fact that it began on Facebook and that Thomas was the administrator of the group page. According to CNBC, it had at least 50 members who Thomas described as “grassroots state leaders.”

On March 6, 2021, Thomas and the Frontliners hosted conservative pundit C.L. Bryant for a speech.

“There is a robbery that is going on in this country right now,” Bryant said, according to The Washington Post. “In fact, I say it to you and I’ll say it loud and clear, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I won’t bite my tongue. I do believe that Donald John Trump is the only legitimate president.”

Three weeks later, Thomas and her group had their meeting with Robinson.

# Sam BrodeyDeputy Politics Editor

@sambrodeySam.Brodey@thedailybeast.com

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Mark Robinson Says He Was Elected Lt. Gov. Because He Was Chosen By God | Right Wing Watch

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October 18, 2023 RWW

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n March, TPM reported on several years of Facebook comments by North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson that spanned an impressive range of bigotry that targeted gay people, Black people, immigrants of many backgrounds, and Jews. At one point he even seemed to question the Holocaust.

And yet, Robinson remains the leading contender to become the Republican candidate for governor of his state.

Astoundingly, a new report in the conservative publication The Dispatch suggests that Robinson himself may believe the enormous pile of damning past comments that TPM and other news outlets have surfaced publicly is just the tip of an even more enormous iceberg of toxic material contained in Democrats’ opposition research file, which has yet to drop in full.

“I know there’s probably a lot of stuff out there swirling around … People are trying to put doubt in the air about our campaign, about me, but none of that stuff is true, I guarantee you,” Robinson said in a voicemail he left for a prospective Republican donor, according to The Dispatch. “We’re ready to take this challenge on. And I believe that we are the candidate.”

It’s super early. But the Dispatch report suggests that North Carolina Republicans think Robinson is virtually unbeatable:

“There’s a certain bit of desperation here that’s like: Well, why don’t we just try something new, and try something different?” said one senior adviser to a North Carolina state senator.

The dynamic among Republicans resembles last year’s Republican Senate primary in Georgia, when no GOP candidate was seen as a potential contender against former football star Herschel Walker for the nomination.

“Most of the legislators I’ve spoken to about this have essentially told me: ‘He’s gonna get the nomination. So what am I going to do, stand in the way?’” added the adviser, who said that concerns about Robinson’s general election viability have grown quieter.

It all sort of smacks of 2022, doesn’t it?

Herschel Walker in Georgia is a fine comparison. When it comes to far-right candidates who were just too weird for a swing-state electorate, 2022 gifted us plenty: Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, or nearly all of the statewide Republican candidates in Arizona and Michigan.

In 2024, Democrats face a terrible, terrible map. In the Senate, 23 seats currently held by Democrats are up for election, and only 11 held by Republicans are. Many of those Republicans are in safe, very red states; among the 23 Democratic senators, on the other hand, are some of the party’s most vulnerable. The picture is similar when it comes to governor races: all of the Republican-held governorships are safe seats, while three Democratic-held governorships are states in which Republicans stand a decent chance — including North Carolina.

Candidates like Robinson may play a small role (or, who knows, maybe a significant role!) in tempering Democrats’ grim outlook.

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/christian-nationalist-mark-robinson-has-to-remind-himself-that-this-is-a-constitutional-republic-its-not-a-theocracy/

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May 12, 2023 

Tags: Bill Donohue Elon Musk Mark Robinson Round-Up

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schedule and speakers list for this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference make it clear that the gathering will be dominated by the undemocratic and unprincipled power-seeking strategies for which former President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are known.

Lying About Elections, Undermining Democracy

The choice of Kari Lake to keynote the event’s gala, the “Ronald Reagan Dinner,” makes it clear that CPAC will continue to promote damaging false claims about voter fraud. Trump’s refusal to admit that voters rejected him in 2020 fueled the violent attempt to stop Congress from affirming President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

Following in Trump’s footsteps, Lake has refused to accept her defeat by Arizona voters in last year’s governor’s race. Instead, she inflames supporters with bogus claims of election fraud, filing lawsuit after rejected lawsuit seeking to overturn her loss. Right Wing Watch reported that this month Lake took her complaints to two programs hosted by far-right broadcasters who have called for violence against political opponents. On one, when the host claimed that conservative Christians are being provoked to unleash “violence or bloodshed,” Lake responded, “I don’t know how much longer the people can take it.” As we saw on Jan. 6, 2021, this strategy is dangerous for democracy.

In addition to Trump himself, other speakers include Trump family members, right-wing funder and promoter of debunked election conspiracies Mike Lindell, MAGA strategist Steve Bannon, and far-right “Pizzagate” promoter Jack Posobiec.

Previous CPAC gatherings have celebrated authoritarian strongmen leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Brazil’s former president, Jair Balsonaro, whose supporters attacked government buildings after his defeat. Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, a right-wing legislator, will speak at CPAC this year.

‘Parents with Pitchforks’: Limiting the Freedom to Learn

Right-wing political leaders are aggressively restricting freedom in the name of attacking “wokeness,” which they have invoked to restrict honest teaching about racism, purge library books that feature Black and LGBTQ characters, and deny access to essential health care for transgender people. This is an expansion of the cynical right-wing strategy launched during the Trump administration to vilify “critical race theory” and then slap the label on anything right-wing activists didn’t like.

One strategy in the war on “wokeness” is stoking racial resentment and grievance among conservative white voters. Before last year’s election, a group run by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller ran digital ads denouncing “anti-white bigotry” and falsely claiming that the Biden administration “put white people last in line for COVID relief funds.” Miller, an architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies with a documented affinity for white nationalism, is listed as a CPAC speaker.

One Thursday CPAC segment dubbed “Parents with Pitchforks” includes Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears,whose boss Gov. Glenn Youngkin has just launched an investigation of the AP African American Studies class attacked by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Another segment on “Sacking the Woke Playbook” features Sen. Tommy Tuberville and former acting attorney general Matt Whitaker, who once insisted that all judicial nominees should share his “biblical view of justice.”

Christian Nationalism

Also likely to be promoted at CPAC is the increasingly aggressive Christian nationalism espoused by religious-right activists and promoted by far-right politicians like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene andNorth Carolina’s vehemently anti-LGBTQ Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who exclaimed in 2021, “As for this not being a Christian nation,yes, it is! If you don’t like it, I’ll buy your plane, train, or automobile ticket right up out of here.”Both Greene and Robinson are listed as speakers at this year’s gathering. Scholars have documented that white evangelicals are the group most likely to strongly embrace Christian nationalism, and those who do are more likely to support authoritarianism and political violence.

A ‘Principled’ Alternative?

A group of non-Trumpist conservatives has organized an alternative to CPAC, which they call the Principles First Summit. In a Substack column promoting the summit, organizer Heath Mayo denounced the evolution of CPAC in the Trump era, saying “What once set a budding movement’s standards for principles and character is now a showcase of its worst ills.” CPAC, Mayo wrote, “actively applauds a conspiratorial fringe of our politics completely unmoored from ethical constraints and moral commitments.”

Tags: Donald Trump Eduardo Bolsonaro Jack Posobiec Kari Lake Marjorie Taylor Greene Mark Robinson Mike Lindell Stephen Miller Steve Bannon Winsome Sears Censorship Christian Nationalism CPAC CPAC 2023 Critical Race Theory Stop the Steal CPAC

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an 11 22

The Arizona Republican Party’s nominee for governor, Kari Lake, is telling supporters there’s no reason for schools to spend so much time teaching science, math, and history. If elected she would recreate public schools into factories producing young adults who can immediately enter the workforce without the benefit of understanding basic information necessary in a democratic society. In North Carolina, the dominionist Lt. Governor wants to ban the teaching of science and history in elementary schools. And a Fox News host this week claimed that social studies – classes that teach history, culture, geography, political science, philosophy, and psychology – is a fake subject, “made up by progressives.”

That Fox News host is Pete Hegseth, who Donald Trump, when he was president, wanted to nominate to head the Veterans Administration. Hegseth may be best-known, however, for once bragging on Fox News that he hadn’t washed his hands in over a decade.

“Germs are not a real thing,” Hegseth...RELATED: https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/10/this-is-who-they-are-critics-blast-kari-lake-for-mocking-paul-pelosi-after-brutally-violent-assault/...‘This Is Who They Are’: Critics Blast Kari Lake for Mocking Paul Pelosi After Brutally Violent Assault

“Everything about the confines of my classroom was created by progressives 100 years ago,” Hegseth told a live audience this week. “You mentioned the rows. You mentioned that approach – the bell ringing. God being removed of course, lunch breaks, lunch breaks, different subjects, Social Studies.”

That’s when Hegseth got agitated.

“The idea we’re not going to study civics, history, philosophy, theology, we’re going to create psychology and social studies and split it all up as if we can dissect human nature and through a scientific method which they’ve invented.”.

“That’s right, create more perfectible human beings by controlling how they think and what they think, all created by progressives.”

Hegseth thinks taxpayer-funded public schools should teach everything through the “lens” of God, or, more specifically, his God...“Did you take social studies? I took social studies. The progressives made it up it – it’s, it’s a made-up conglomerate of subjects meant to silo the way that we think as opposed to basing all of wisdom in God’s wisdom, in His word, and it all makes sense, looking at it through that lens....[twt] ...social Studies, of course, includes civics and history, and philosophy. In fact, the  offers a definition for social studies:

[READ MORE:

“Social studies is the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence,” which Hegseth appears to object to.

“Within the school program, social studies provides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology, as well as appropriate content from the humanities, mathematics, and natural sciences.”

“The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.”

Hegseth is not alone in wanting to reduce what children learn.

Republican Kari Lake, Arizona’s GOP nominee for governor and a former TV news reporter whose entire education was in public schools, now thinks school children don’t need to learn as much as they are currently when it comes to science, math, and history.

[READ MORE: ‘We the People – Not Enemies’: President Biden Urges Americans to ‘Preserve Democracy’ in Address to Nation

“I believe we are at a prime opportunity to completely re-envision how our government schools are run, because everyone’s eyes are open,” Lake told supporters at an event while campaigning with far-right white Christian nationalist U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ).

“And who says we have to have this many hours of science, this many of math and history? We can change that up,” said Lake about an entire state’s public school system that already has been “ranked worst across the 50 United States of America,” according to a report in Arizona’s KGUN 9 News.

“What does it mean to have a high school diploma? It should mean that you know some of the basics, and you also have some ability to go out and make a living. Our schools have our kids for 13 years from K through 12 and at the end of 13 years, we should have some competent adults going into the world who can make a living because there are jobs out there.”

[twt vid patriot takes]

notice how Lake doesn’t say, “public schools,” but “government schools,” a term many on the right use to demonize public schools, expanding their belief that anything the government does is wrong, bad, or a waste of tax dollars.

Lake also sounds like she’s suggesting high school graduates are not able to get jobs because they have spent too much time learning about science, math, and history.

Then there’s far right Christian dominionist Republican Lt. Governor of North Carolina Mark Robinson, who is another extremist attacking education.

Robinson made national headlines after calling LGBTQ people “filth.”

In August MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones wrote that Robinson “may well be the most bigoted official in the United States with the least name recognition.”

Calling him “a full-on extremist,” Jones writes that Robinson And “reportedly has a new, ludicrous belief to share with the masses: Science and history shouldn’t be taught to students until they reach sixth grade.”

“First through fifth grades ‘don’t need to be teaching social studies,’ he wrote, according to local NBC affiliate WRAL-TV, which obtained an advanced copy of his upcoming book,” Jones adds, reporting that Robinson wrote: “We don’t need to be teaching science. We surely don’t need to be talking about equity and social justice.”

There’s more to Robinson’s extremist ideas on education.

Get rid of it. Or, specifically, Jones writes, Robinson has ” called for the elimination of the state’s board of education.”

“Robinson said flatly what most fact-averse conservatives won’t admit about their education crusade,” Jones continues. “They fear accurate history lessons that could inevitably lead to discussions about systemic disparities. And they fear discussions about science, which may undermine the fundamentalist Christian beliefs at the heart of the conservative movement.”

Jones sums up this entire approach to public education from the right.

“Robinson’s reported ideas about education showcase the logical endpoint of the Republican Party’s assault on lessons about social inequality: an eagerness to keep children stupid.”

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badash tag

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Mark+Robinson

Search results for "Mark Robinson"

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM11 months agoWatch: Bigoted NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson Berates Democratic Lawmaker for Denouncing His Anti-LGBTQ Hate SpeechNorth Carolina’s Republican Lt. Governor Mark Robinson lashed out at a Democratic state lawmaker after she delivered a speech urging elected leaders to try to understand...

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM1 year agoNC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson Says Transgender People and Drag Queens Are ‘Pure Lunacy’ and Want to Molest KidsNorth Carolina’s Christian nationalist Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson remains defiant amid the controversy that erupted when Right Wing Watch posted a clip of him ranting...

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM1 year ago‘Teaching Them How to Go to Hell’: NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson Calls Transgender Rights Movement ‘Demonic’North Carolina’s Christian nationalist Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is under fire after Right Wing Watch posted a clip of him speaking Asbury Baptist Church in...

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM1 year agoNewsmax White House Reporter Busted for False Claim Vaccines Contain Satan-Linked ‘Bioluminescent Markers’ to ‘Track’ YouEmerald Robinson, the White House correspondent for far right wing media operation Newsmax was inundated with fact checks and mockery Monday night after she posted a totally...

LITERALLY CALLING IT 'COMMUNISM'2 years ago‘Biden’s Mark of the Beast’: Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan Lead Extremists Revolting Against Vaccine PassportsBeing Called ‘Modern Day Nazi Germany’ In response to news the Biden administration is in support of “vaccine passports,” digital ID’s that would allow businesses, for...7 years ago‘I’m Not A Bigot’ Says Man On Trial For Horrific 2013 Hate Crime Murder Of NYC Gay Man Mark CarsonElliot Morales, who reportedly laughed as he told police, "I shot him in the face," is charged with a hate crime murder and is defending himself.

COMMENTARY1 hour agoWatch: Extremist Republicans Openly Attack Public Schools Teaching Science, Math, History and Social Studies to KidsThe Arizona Republican Party’s nominee for governor, Kari Lake, is telling supporters there’s no reason for schools to spend so much time teaching science, math, and history....

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM7 months ago‘Lie From Hell’: Franklin Graham Spends Weekend Promoting Anti-LGBTQ Extremism – and Calls for ‘Regime Change’ in USRight-wing evangelical Franklin Graham spent the weekend promoting anti-LGBTQ extremist hate to his nearly 10 million Facebook followers, including by attacking The Walt Disney Company, criticizing...

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM8 months agoWatch: Fox News Makes Vile Claim About Liberals, Young Children, and Sexual ‘Grooming’Fox News propagandist Laura Ingraham has been called a “monster” by her own brother, who is gay. “Our father was a Nazi sympathizer, racist, anti-Semite and...

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM12 months agoWatch: NC Lt. Gov. Declares Straight Relationships ‘Superior’ to Gay Ones – Says Even Cow Manure Is BetterNorth Carolina’s far right Christian nationalist Lt. Governor, Republican Mark Robinson, set his sights on LGBTQ people once again, attacking same-sex relationships as inferior to heterosexual...

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM12 months ago‘Would You Like to See Some of My Ammo?’: NC Lt. Gov. ‘Jokingly’ Threatens IRS’s ‘Revenuer Man’North Carolina extremist Christian nationalist Lt. Governor, Republican Mark Robinson on Saturday appeared to “jokingly” threaten any IRS agents who might come to his home as he...

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM1 year ago‘Christian Patriots’ Will ‘Own’ and ‘Rule’ America Declares NC GOP Lt. GovernorNorth Carolina’s Christian nationalist Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who recently announced that he’s “about 95 percent sure” that he will be running for governor in...

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM1 year agoChristian Nationalist Lt. Gov. Thinks First Amendment Protects Him From Being Criticized for His Anti-LGBTQ ViewsNorth Carolina Republican Lt. Governor Mark Robinson is furious that people are criticizing him over his virulently anti-LGBTQ views, and thinks the First Amendment is supposed...

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM1 year agoFranklin Graham Rushes to Defend Lt. Governor Who Calls LGBTQ People ‘Filth’Evangelical former Trump advisor Franklin Graham is defending Lt. Governor Mark Robinson after calls for the North Carolina Republican to resign for calling LGBTQ people “filth.” Graham,...

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM1 year ago‘Perverted Agendas’: NC Lt. Gov. Says School Boards Are Shoving ‘Homosexuality Garbage’ Down Kids’ ThroatsNorth Carolina Republican Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, currently under fire for calling LGBTQ people “filth,” made similar remarks about LGBTQ people just days ago. Robinson’s “filth” remarks...

HATE IS HATE1 year agoNC Lt. Governor Accused of ‘Open Discrimination’ After Calling LGBTQ People ‘Filth’ and Demanding Christians Take ControlCalls are growing for North Carolina Republican Lt. Governor Mark Robinson to resign after video of remarks he made in June, calling LGBTQ people “filth,” went...

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM1 year agoNorth Carolina Lt. Gov. Proclaims America Is ‘A Christian Nation,’ Says School Shootings Will Stop When Kids Learn About JesusNorth Carolina’s Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson was among members of Congress, state legislators, various candidates for office, and

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https://www.alternet.org/right-wing/homophobia-misogyny-and-islamophobia-rights-new-darling-mark-keith-robinson-has-it-all

This  Saturday, pro-gun control MAGA hordes will gather at the Orange County Second Amendment (OC2A) rally in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Among the speakers will be the newest darling of the right—recently granted fawning coverage by outlets such as Breitbart, Twitchy, Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze—Mark Keith Robinson. The right’s latest attack dog epitomizes the current Republican brand, as a “birther pundit who says gay people are ‘devil-worshipping child molesters,’ black Democrats are ‘slaves,’ the student survivors of the Parkland shooting are ‘silly little immature media prosti-tots,’ and Michelle Obama is a man.”

As Shareblue Media notes, Robinson became a favorite among alt-right and right-wing media back in April after delivering a pro-gun speech at a town council meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina. But he’s also incredibly vocal on social media. In a Facebook post dated February 7, Robinson wrote that homosexuality has been “pushed...over the top” and hysterically concludes “PEDOPHILLA is next, which will be closely followed by the END of civilization as we know it.”

There is nothing more beloved by the GOP than a token visible minority who’s eager to promote the party’s racist views. Robinson, who is African-American, frequently promotes the ahistorical GOP view that the party remains that of Abraham Lincoln, and tacitly accuses black people of being too stupid to understand their own political interests. “Half of black Democrats don't realize they are slaves and don't know who their masters are,” Robinson posted on Facebook in February, employing a corruption of a totally fake Harriet Tubman quote. “The other half don't care.” (“Nor do all of them vote. Yet always the first to complain,” wrote a fan of Robinson’s in the comments.)  In March, Robinson posted a meme that declares President Barack Obama “entered the White House with a fake birth certificate.” And in yet another example of his misunderstanding of how slavery worked, Robinson recently compared Senator Maxine Waters, an African-American woman, to 19th-century “PRO SLAVERY Democrat Preston Brooks,” and labeled her an “OVERSEER.” Following his lead, fans of Robinson filled the comments with overtly racist and misogynoir responses, including memes that paint Sen. Waters as a “crack addict” and imagine her speaking in clumsy, misspelled, inarticulate phrases.

Just this Friday, Robinson took to Facebook to call Hillary Clinton a “witch,” a word he apparently thinks works for pretty much any woman he doesn’t like, considering he used the same term in 2016 to describe Beyonce. Shareblue points out that Robinson “uses the male pronoun to refer to Michelle Obama, echoing a conservative theory that she is male.”

Robinson has also disparaged Muslims via his social media. In one deleted post (saved in this screenshot), he declared, “The question is not ‘When is the last time you saw anyone but a Muslim holding a severed head and smiling’....The question is, when is the last time you saw a Muslim protesting against a Muslim who severed a head, or bombed a shopping mall, or ran down a group of humans with a truck, or shot up a nightclub, or burned someone alive.....”

Despite—or rather, because of—Robinson’s remarks, he’s become a highly sought-after speaker on the right. There are appearances this summer in Broward County, Florida; Tallahassee, Florida; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, among many others. This month, Robinson shares a bill with Candace Owens, the black conservative provocateur who wrote that Trump “isn’t just the leader of the free world, but the savior of it as well.” During his April appearance on Fox & Friends, co-host Ainsley Earhardt gushed, “You’re great; I really think you should run for office.”

As previously mentioned, Robinson’s latest stop will be a speaking gig at the Orange County Second Amendment (OC2A) rally in Hillsborough, North Carolina, this Saturday. In a press statement, Hillsborough Progressives Taking Action (HPTA) notes that he’ll be joined by “speakers from Grass Roots NC, whose PAC ‘recommends’ white supremacist and anti-Semitic House candidate Russell Walker.”

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