The Road to Splitsville MARK ROBINSON--INTO THE MAGAVERSE

The Newsletter for Subscribers to THE SPLIT

If we really are on The Road to Splitsville—which is to say, if, one day, the red states and the blue states do elect to break up, going from unum to pluribus in the form of two sovereign countries—the reds are going to need more than a few Gadsden flags and “Ask Me About Texit” bumper stickers to get there.

It’s going to take a very special kind of political leadership—men and women unafraid, not only to think outside the box, but to throw the box into the recycling bin and not think at all.

Which brings us to Mark Robinson.

You may remember him from some mostly-forgotten mentions, in the news or online, over the past two months, in which he did or said something loud/stupid/horrifying, earning him the endorsement of the MAGA king himself. Robinson is currently the Lieutenant Governor of the great barely-okay state of North Carolina. “Who cares!?” Exactly. But he also happens to be the state’s official Republican candidate for governor. And an anti-Semite, who called reports of the Holocaust “hogwash” and who has since gone on to summon his state to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Israel. And a pro-life, anti-abortion campaigner who once paid for an abortion. And a—

But wait. Start here, at the excellent blog Mock Paper Scissors, which gifts us with a video clip of Robinson thanks to the also-excellent Aaron Rupar.

Got that? Jesus has plans for Mark Robinson. (God knows what they are. Literally!) This oration was delivered last week at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in D.C., where conservative Christians gather to ignore their faith and plot to take away others’ freedom. Their keynote speaker—you’ll never guess in a million years who it was—uttered these inspirational words about the Ten Commandments: “Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal’? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible. They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.”

We know--it takes a minute to recover from the stirring eloquence. Once you do so, you realize: It is a crazy world. And it’s especially crazy in North Carolina. In an article by Will Doran, a reporter for WRAL News, we learn that

Robinson in a past Facebook post called reports of the Holocaust "hogwash." In a separate 2017 post, he implied that the widely accepted figure of 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis is false.

In 2019 Robinson went on a podcast hosted by an alleged cult leader, where he endorsed the host's conspiracy theory that Jewish bankers are one of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," along with Muslims, China and the CIA.

"That’s exactly right," Robinson told the podcast host. "It’s amazing to me that we live in this age of information where you can go online and you can find all this information, and it’s not hidden from anybody.”

As you may know, there is a term of art for when you go online and find all this information. It’s called “doing your own research,” and it is the guild-authorized, widely-respected practice of crackpots, nutjobs, and conspiracy theorists from sea to shining s. Where else could one learn that, when John of Patmos wrote the book of Revelation (in AD 81-96-ish), what looked like references to famine, war, conquest, and death were actually astoundingly accurate predictions (and excoriations) of Jewish bankers, Muslims, China, and the Central Intelligence Agency?

And when you think about it, who doesn’t want the Governor of North Carolina to believe these things? But wait. There’s—as always, with these rising Republican stars—more. Take it away, Sara Pequeño of USA Today:

In 2021, he caught statewide attention for referring to gay and transgender people as “filth.” A year later, he faced scrutiny for a 2012 Facebook comment where he admitted to paying for an abortion in 1989, despite being staunchly pro-life as a politician. There was a period where his Facebook posts could have constituted a column a week with how controversial they are.

In a piece in April, 2023, Doran of WRAL wrote that Robinson, “told a church congregation: ‘Explain to me the purpose of homosexuality? ... What does it create? It creates nothing.’ He has called transgender athletes ‘painted-up, striped-up jackasses.’”

Say it with us now: He seems nice.

It’s worth repeating: This is the person, out of the entire population of North Carolina (10.7 million [2022]), that the state’s Republicans have chosen to run for Governor.  He’s a tried-and-true citizen of the MAGAverse—bigoted, hypocritical, demagogic, reactionary, and shameless in flaunting his supposed religiosity. The only thing about Robinson not typical of the Trump cult is the fact that he’s Black.

You kids are too young to remember this, but there was a time when North Carolina was the good Carolina—liberal-ish, enlightened, not krazee. And maybe it sort of still is. N.C. is, one reads, a purple state, which means, not that it’s full of centrist voters, but rather with a lot of voters on the left, and a lot on the right. The current governor himself is a Democrat. And dig this Fun Fact: Robinson’s Democratic opponent for the governorship in November will be the state’s Attorney General, Josh Stein—who is, as one’s parents used to say, “a Jewish fella.” That should make for some interesting debates, if “interesting” is the word we want.

Recent history suggests that, in November, Robinson will lose, for the very reason that most of the candidates that Donald Trump endorsed in 2022 lost—namely, that the MAGA/Trump cult and its candidates are colorful, and outspoken, and not-your-typical-politicians, and insane. But you heard the man. He may not win any future political office. Jesus may have other plans for him. But the Lord works in mysterious ways. Today’s failed gubernatorial candidate might turn out to be tomorrow’s fearless political visionary. For all we know, Mark Robinson will be there to greet us when we finally reach the end of the Road to Splitsville, to usher us—well, not us, of course; but to usher people just like him—into the promised (or maybe threatened) land, the Confederation of Conservative States of America.