Source: MSNBC
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is likely to announce soon that he will run for governor in 2024 and due to the importance of the race, the national media is finding out what North Carolinians have known for several years now – Robinson is a far-right Christian nationalist bigot.
So far, the only two major party candidates who have announced they’re officially running for governor are Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein and Republican North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell. Robinson has been talking about how he doesn’t want to be governor but will probably run anyway for months now.
Politico has called the potential Stein/Robinson matchup “The most important governor race of 2024,” and said it is “arguably one of the most interesting — and consequential” races in the country.
Talking Points Memo has also recently looked into Robinson and highlighted his disturbing social media posts promoting racist, antisemitic, homophobic, and transphobic views and memes.
Now, MSNBC is getting on board and also looking at Robinson’s disgusting views and his connection to the hatred we see on the Christian right.
Under the headline, “This GOP star embodies the Christian right’s bigotry,” MSNBC’s Sarah Posner writes that Robinson “and his cache of appalling social media posts is further evidence that there is no daylight between the movement that bills itself as being committed to ‘family values’ and ‘religious freedom’ and the swamps of the bigoted far right.”
After highlighting some of Robinson’s homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic and anti-choice “greatest hits,” Posner connects his rise in prominence to his “celebrity status on the Christian right.”
Robinson is the darling of Washington’s top Christian right political advocacy group, the Family Research Council. FRC’s president, Tony Perkins, has called him “truly a trophy of God’s grace, a man to be admired for his courage, righteousness and justice.”
Robinson’s politics have been promoted by My Faith Votes, an organization that mobilizes evangelical Christians to vote and he has been a featured speaker at events like the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference and Trinity Broadcasting Network’s show hosted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
According to Posner, Robinson’s support among the religious right comes from the frequent pronouncements of his version of Christianity and his obedience to right-wing Christian talking points such as his opposition to abortion (despite paying for one himself) and LGBTQ+ rights, and his incendiary proclamations about non-issues such as critical race theory, so-called socialism and the “indoctrination” of America’s public school children.
Posner sums up Robinson’s relationship with the Christian right very succinctly, writing, “Evangelicals’ admiration isn’t in spite of Robinson’s derogatory comments but because of them.”
Robinson’s quick rise from a man yelling about guns at a Greensboro City Council meeting to potentially the next governor of North Carolina is, unfortunately, a model for other MAGA extremists who want to fight to save “Christian America” and use political power to attempt to destroy those they don’t agree with.
