On February 24th, Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson delivered a speech at CPAC in which he addressed education, election integrity, law enforcement, and much more. Naturally, mentions of COVID-19 were interwoven throughout his speech, as the Lt. Governor emphasized the importance of medical freedom. Much of his speech was troublesome, to say the least.
In regards to education, the Lt. Governor told the crowd, “back in my home state of North Carolina, we are fighting tooth and nail to straighten out our education system. We spend almost half the state budget on education and kids can’t read at a grade level, meanwhile, pornography is in our libraries.” The “pornography” he is referring to would be the books he is trying to ban from school libraries; books that are written about the experiences of gay or transgender children, and absolutely do not qualify as pornography.
Robinson went on to talk about law enforcement, insisting that “every time I turn around I see another police officer being murdered, being assassinated, being assaulted, being charged with something they have not done. The whole time the crime rate is spiraling out of control.” Ironically, the same day of Robinson’s speech, a North Carolina police officer was arrested after federal prosecutors said he was selling cocaine on the job.
And finally, and perhaps most concerning, Robinson brought up election integrity. He said, “I don’t care what you tell me – 83 million people did not vote for Joe Biden. I don’t think 83 million people know who Joe Biden is. Joe Biden doesn’t know who Joe Biden is. Joe Biden is an incompetent, incontinent, nitwit. Who has ruined everything he has touched.” While these comments are par for the course for some of the more extreme GOP members, it is deeply upsetting that Robinson’s comments coincide with the Russian invasion of Ukraine – a time when being united as a nation and at a minimum giving the illusion of support for our country’s leader is vital.
