N.C. GOP Nominee Mark Robinson’s Most Reprehensible Comments

Republicans in North Carolina have selected Mark Robinson as their nominee in the swing state’s 2024 gubernatorial race. Robinson — the state’s first Black lieutenant governor, who will now face Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein in the general election — has a richer history of bigoted commentary than any major-party political candidate in recent memory. He has leveled truly vile attacks against Muslims, Jews, women, and the LGBTQ community, while pushing a torrent of conspiracy theories about everything from Covid-19 to the 2020 election. He also loves Donald Trump.

Trump loves him back, naturally. The former president last summer said he would endorse his run for governor, and made it official ahead of the primary earlier this month, calling Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” during a rally in North Carolina. “I told that to Mark,” Trump recalled. “I said, ‘I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two.’”

Robinson, a former furniture manufacturer who got into politics by defending gun rights after the 2018 Parkland High School shooting, defeated his closest Republican primary challenger by over 45 percentage points. The day after he won the nomination, video surfaced of Robinson pining for a return to “the America where women couldn’t vote.” The video went viral, but it’s only one of countless reprehensible comments he’s made in recent years. Here’s an incomplete list of some of the others:

Holocaust denial

In Facebook posts, Robinson has repeatedly denied the Holocaust. In one 2018 post, he wrote that “this foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.”

In another post, published in 2017, Robinson wrote that “there is a REASON the liberal media fills the airwaves with programs about the NAZI and the ‘6 million Jews’ they murdered,” placing the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust in scare quotes.

Calling “Black Panther” a ploy for Jewish people to take money from Black people 

The 2018 Marvel film Black Panther was an immediate, worldwide blockbuster success — Mark Robinson hated it.

Shortly after its release, Robinson took to Facebook to author an antisemitic screed about the film. “It is absolutely AMAZING to me that people who know so little about their true history and REFUSE to acknowledge the pure sorry state of their current condition can get so excited about a fictional ‘hero’ created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic marxist,” he wrote. “How can this trash, that was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets, invoke any pride?” he added, invoking a derogatory Yiddish term for Black people.

Quoting Hitler

Robinson’s prolific Facebook musings also include quotes from the genocidal Nazi dictator Adolf Hilter. In 2014, Robinson posted a “History who said it,” on his profile: “Pride in one’s own race — and that does not imply contempt for other races — is also a normal and healthy sentiment. I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves… They have the right to be proud of their past, just as we have the right to be proud of the civilization to which we belong.” He didn’t clarify in the post that the text was drawn from Hitler’s political testaments, as recorded by Martin Bormann, in the months before his suicide in April of 1945.

While Robinson decontextualized the quote, at the time Hitler said those words, millions of Jews had already been exterminated by the Nazis throughout Europe. Robinson later defended quoting Hitler at a Moms for Liberty conference.

In subsequent years, Robinson complained that people talk too much about the Nazis and their atrocities. “I am so sick of seeing and hearing people STILL talk about Nazis and Hitler and how evil and manipulative they were,” he wrote in 2017. “ NEWS FLASH PEOPLE, THE NAZIS (National Socialist) ARE GONE! We did away with them.”

Calling homosexuality “filth” and likening LGBTQ people to “maggots”

In a 2021 sermon before a North Carolina church, Robinson referred to LGBTQ people as “filth.”

“There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth,” Robinson said. “And yes, I called it filth, and if you don’t like that I called it filth, come see me and I’ll explain it to you.”

Months later, during another sermon, Robinson declared that heterosexual couples were “superior” to homosexual couples, and likened LGBTQ relationships to having less validity than “what the cows leave behind.”

“Everything that God made, from the foul odor of what the cow left behind, to the decaying body of every living creature, to the maggots that eat those dead bodies, to the flies left behind — God made all those things for a purpose. Would someone please explain to me the purpose of Homosexuality?” he said. “If homosexuality is of God, what purpose does it serve? What does it make? What does it create? It creates nothing.”

Anti-trans rhetoric

Robinson clearly harbors a disgust for LGBTQ people, but he is particularly vitriolic in his rhetoric regarding transgender people. Earlier this year, during campaign remarks in Cary, North Carolina, Robinson said transgender women should be arrested for using women’s restrooms.

“We’re going to defend women in this state,” he said. “That means if you’re a man on Friday night and all of the sudden on Saturday, you feel like a woman and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the mall, you will be arrested — or whatever we got to do to you.”

Instead, Robinson said, transgender women should “find a corner outside somewhere to go.”

Anti-Muslim posts 

In 2017, Robinson attacked Muslims, and Muslim immigrants to the United States, in a lengthy Facebook post.

“In many areas they DEMAND their own space on land which they have paid for in neither blood or money […] I for one am SICK OF IT,” he wrote.

“They jumped off the pile of rocks they once called home and now come to what someone else has built and DEMAND rights they were too afraid to fight for in the countries they fled. And I’m not afraid to say it; It sicken me to my core to see them congregated like sullen anti-American separatist who refuse to assimilate to our ways while demanding respect they have not earned,” Robinson said. “The truth of the matter is this; these people are not ‘immigrants,’ they are INVADERS.”

In another post, Robinson wrote that 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…..”

Mocking Asian accents

Robinson loves creating his own memes, so much that in the past he’s watermarked them to ensure his Facebook followers know exactly who made them. In one such meme, published in 2016, Robinson mocks Asian accents. The post, containing the image of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, contains the text “NOT GOOD IDEA TO TALK ABOWT OTHER MAN’S SKELWETON IN QASET WHEN VOU HAB DEAD BODY ON YOUR WIVING WOOM FOUR.”

Longing for the days when women couldn’t vote

A day after the primary, HuffPost reported on a 2020 video in which Robinson said he wished America could return to the days when women couldn’t vote.

“I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote,” Robinson said. “Do you know why? Because in those days, we had people who fought for real social change, and they were called Republicans.”

Saying women should not be leaders in society because “We are called to be led by men”

During a 2022 sermon, Robinson made clear that he feels women’s role in society is not in leadership.

“We are called to be led by men,” he said “God sent women out when they had to do their thing, but when they had to do their thing, but when it was time to face down Goliath, [He] sent David. Not Davita, David.” God also sent Moses, “not Momma Moses. Daddy Moses,” he added.

Calling Beyoncé “Satanic”

You’ve made it this far, so it’s probably clear there are a lot of things Mark Robinson doesn’t like. If there’s space left in your brain, add Beyoncé to the list.

“Her songs sound like they say stuff like ‘Satan laughs as you rot in hell’ if you play them backwards. SUPER WEIRD!!!!!” Robinson wrote in 2019, alongside a “change my mind” meme featuring the phrase “Beyoncé’s songs sound like Satanic chants.”

She’s not the only entertainer he considers to be influenced by the devil. He wrote in 2017 that Beyoncé’s husband, rapper Jay-Z, was a “demonic stooge of Satan who has promised to lead as many people as possible away from Jesus in exchange for millions of dollars and worldwide fame.”

Calling Michelle Obama a man 

Alongside his support for conspiracies about the former president, Robinson repeatedly posted hateful and derogatory comments about former First Lady Michelle Obama. “Michelle Obama is an anti-American, abortion and gay marriage supporting, liberal leftist elitist and I’ll be glad when he takes his boyfriend and leaves the White House,” he wrote on Facebook in 2017. The post echoed a longstanding attack from the right accusing Obama of being secretly transgender or a man.

“So what First LADY Melania Trump speaks five languages. First ‘lady’ Michelle Obama spoke five also; female, male, ghetto, anti-American liberal, and wookie,” Robinson wrote in another post.

Calling the allegations against Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein an illuminati plot

One would hope that as a society we have evolved beyond the need for anyone to feel they have to defend convicted sexual abusers Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. But Robinson did just that during a 2018 interview on the “Politics and Prophecy with Chris Levels” radio show.

“What the left is doing with the Harvey Weinsteins, the Bill Cosbys, the Matt Lauers. They have picked out the elite group of people that have committed these so-called sexual crimes, or whatever kind of crimes they’ve committed or offenses, and they have thrown those people underneath the bus, eating their own to breed a spirit of fear in people so people will be afraid to stand up and speak up and get involved,” he said.

“Everybody sins, come short of the glory of God. They know that. They want people to be afraid of their power and they want to create a climate of fear,” Robinson added.

Calling mass shootings “karma” for abortion 

In 2019, Robinson claimed that mass shootings were ”karma” for Americans’ support for abortion rights. “When you spill that innocent blood, that blood is going to come back as a stain on you and it’s going to come home to roost,” he said in an interview with conservative commentator John Age.

“People say, ‘Well, I just can’t believe we’re having all these mass killings. And I can’t believe that people are so mean.’ Our own government is promoting the murder of infants. Do you think that somehow — people talk about karma all the time. Do you think that that’s not swinging back around in this society and that people are seeing how human life is being devalued through the murder of all these infants?” Robinson added.

Calling Parkland shooting survivors “spoiled little bastards” and “prosti-tots”

Robinson may think mass shootings are karma for abortions, but that doesn’t mean he has any sympathy for young people who exist outside of the womb.

A fierce anti-gun control advocate, Robinson repeatedly attacked the teenage survivors of the 2018 Parkland mass shooting, calling them “spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN”; “spoiled little bastards”; and “media prosti-tots” in various social media posts.

“I remember when CHILDREN knew their place, and when they got out of place and got sassy. ADULTS would out them back into it,” he wrote in on X, formerly Twitter, post.

“A spoiled, angry, disobedient CHILD shot and killed 17 of his classmates, and now spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN are trying to tell law abiding ADULTS that we must give up our Constitutional RIGHT to own certain weapons,” he wrote in a 2018 Facebook post.

“David Hogg and the rest of these silly little immature ‘media prosti-tots’ need to grab a passy, have seat in time out, and shut up […] If, two days before this shooting, a hard nosed nonsense conservative had walked into that school and put into place the ideals and principles that would have avoided that massacre, you spoiled little bastards would have kicked and screamed like babies in a crib,” he added.

Attacking gay people after the Pulse nightclub shooting 

In 2016, a mass shooter murdered 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The Pulse shooting, which was briefly the deadliest mass shooting in the nation’s history, sparked nationwide horror and renewed attention towards violence against the LGBTQ community.

Mark Robinson begged to differ. “I pray for the souls of all those killed, healing for all those wounded, and comfort for the family members of the terrorist shooting in Orlando. However, homosexuality is STILL an abominable sin and I WILL NOT join in “celebrating gay pride” nor will I fly their sacrilegious flag on my page,” Robinson wrote on Facebook days after the shooting.

“Sorry if this offends anyone, but I’m not falling for the media/pop culture ‘okey-doke.’”

Mocking Paul Pelosi after he was brutally beaten by a home intruder 

In October of 2022, right wing conspiracy theorists when off the rails after Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, was attacked and seriously injured by a home intruder.  Several prominent right-wing figures pushed false claims that Pelosi knew his attacker and that they were actually lovers because Pelosi had referred to him as a “friend” while attempting to tip off 911 dispatchers as to his situation.

Robinson joined in, posting a picture of a fake Spirit Halloween costume depicting Pelosi’s “attacker” which included underwear, hammers, and a “lame story to tell the press.”

“I’m sorry Paul I don’t believe you or the press!!!!” Robinson captioned the post.

Defending white pride 

Robinson felt the need to defend the slogan “White Pride” from accusations of racism. In 2013, he wrote that he was “TIRED of blacks and mexicans running around shouting about being proud of their race but when a white person does it they call them a bigot.”

“I’m not saying that Mexicans and Blacks should not be proud, but who do you think has the most to brag about, the folks who built Mexico, the folks who bulit the Nations in Africa, or the folks who built The United States. What’s good for one race is good for all. If others can thump their chest and claim pride in their race, so can white people,” he wrote.

In a separate 2014 post he wrote a “note to liberals” stating that he would “accept gay pride” when they “accept ‘White Pride.’”

The racist trope is obvious.

Pushing the Obama birther conspiracy 

Robinson promoted baseless right-wing “birther” conspiracy alleging that former President Barack Obama was actually ineligible to be president because he had been secretly born in Kenya and forged his birth certificate.

Pushing Covid-19 conspiracies 

Robinson has cut a name for himself as a MAGA sycophant, closely tying his own policies and politics to those of the former president. During the Covid-19 pandemic — when Robinson was in the midst of his campaign for the lieutenant governorship — he claimed that the pandemic was actually a “globalist” plot to derail Trump’s success as president.

Robinson opposed community door-knocking efforts by the Biden administration to send volunteers into certain communities in order to provide them information on the vaccine, and falsely claimed that the program violated HIPAA laws.

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