A bombshell report about North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the state’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, was published Thursday by CNN. Robinson reportedly posted numerous disturbing statements on the message board of pornographic website Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012.
“I’m a black NAZI!” Robinson reportedly wrote in October 2010. He followed this up with another post the same month, saying, “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few.”
The man whom Donald Trump called “better than Martin Luther King” also had some thoughts for the porn forums about the civil rights leader, calling King a “commie bastard,” “worse than a maggot,” a “phony,” and a “huckster.”
And after another forum user accused Robinson of being in the Ku Klux Klan, Robinson reportedly responded, “I’m not in the KKK. They don’t let blacks join. If I was in the KKK I would have called him Martin Lucifer K–n!” using a racial slur in place of King’s surname.
CNN reports that he also regularly used slurs to describe gay people, Jews, and Muslims.
Robinson also reportedly wrote, “I like watching tr-nny on girl porn! That’s fucking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in! And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”
Robinson has been publicly cruel in statements about transgender people, telling former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka on a podcast in 2023, “The transgender movement in this country, if there’s a movement in this country that is demonic and that is full of spirit of the antichrist, it is the transgender movement.”
The extensive CNN report provides detailed visual evidence that deftly connects Robinson’s Nude Africa profile to accounts on sites like YouTube, Facebook, the site formerly known as Twitter, and Pinterest. Authors Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck also write that they’re “reporting only a small portion of Robinson’s comments on the website given their graphic nature.”
Hints about the CNN piece leaked out early Thursday, followed by additional reports that Republicans were calling on Robinson to withdraw his candidacy. Thursday evening is the deadline to withdraw from the state’s gubernatorial race. The Carolina Journal reported that Donald Trump’s campaign has barred Robinson from showing up at events.
Karen Brinson Bell, who heads North Carolina’s elections board, told the Washington Post that even if Robinson does withdraw before the deadline on Thursday night, his name would still likely appear on absentee, military, and overseas ballots. “To remove a name from the ballot at this time would be an insurmountable hurdle,” she said.
It seems Bell need not worry about it, though. Ahead of the report’s release, Robinson denied its findings in a video released on his social media accounts. “Those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he said, adding, “Clarence Thomas famously once said he was the victim of a high-tech lynching. Well, it looks like Mark Robinson is, too.”
Whether evoking corrupt Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his alleged sexual harassment of Anita Hill will work on North Carolina voters remains to be seen.
This is only the latest scandal to plague Robinson’s political career. He has routinely made misogynistic, homophobic, and generally hate-filled statements. Robinson got national attention as a Fox News favorite willing to endorse just about any far-right conspiracy theory out there, including that former first lady Michelle Obama is secretly a man and that singer Beyoncé’s music is “satanic.”
At a Moms for Liberty event in 2023, he said Americans needed to read more writing and quotations of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
In 2021, Robinson told The East Carolinian that once a woman was pregnant, “it’s not [her] body anymore.” And during this election cycle, Robinson attempted to soften his viciously anti-abortion stance, even admitting that his wife had an abortion, while still condemning everyone else that wants the right to consider it.
Also in 2021, he dismissed calls for him to resign as lieutenant governor after he characterized the LGBTQ+ community as “filth.” And he followed that up by comparing being gay to “what the cows leave behind.”
Josh Stein, North Carolina’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee, has maintained a solid lead against Robinson in the polls. And on Wednesday, Stein released a statement saying he had no plans to debate the GOP nominee.
"Mark Robinson has spent his entire public life spewing hate, lying about his record, and spreading dangerous and false conspiracy theories. A debate would only serve to legitimize him and provide a platform for his vile and dangerous rhetoric, and we won't be part of that."
It is unlikely Stein’s position has changed.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
