Eight days after securing the North Carolina Republican Party’s nomination for lieutenant governor, Mark Keith Robinson posted on Facebook that the coronavirus was more or less like the flu—and he’d seen Michael Jordan play a basketball game with the flu, so suck it up, buttercups.

×

Two days later—a few hours before President Trump declared a coronavirus-related national state of emergency on March 13—Robinson posted this:

×

(Free advice: Using the word “globalist,” especially when taking on conspiratorial tones, is generally frowned upon and often considered anti-semitic.)

An hour later, this:

×

Two weeks later, on February 28, when the contours of the epidemic were becoming clear:

×

To recap, then:

The (ahem) globalists are taking advantage of a pandemic to destroy the president, who is great. We shouldn’t fear the coronavirus. We should fight the people who are lying about the coronavirus. Socialism is scarier than a disease that could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans this year.

Fox News screengrab Mark Robinson

Robinson, if elected, would become North Carolina’s first black lieutenant governor. (Since he’ll face Yvonne Holley in November, that will happen either way.) He rose to national prominence on Fox News as a pro-gun everyman after his angry retort to the Greensboro City Council—which was debating canceling a gun show in 2018—went viral.

“I'm a law-abiding citizen who's never shot anybody,” Robinson told the council. “It seems every time we have one of these shootings, nobody wants to put the blame where it goes, which is at the shooter’s feet. You want to put it at my feet. It doesn't make any sense.”

That video was promoted by the NRA, Breitbart, Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, right-wing U.S. Representative Mark Walker, and circulated throughout conservative media, reaching tens of millions of viewers. It made its way to Fox, whose hosts fawned over him as a “strong defender of the American Constitution.” One, Ashley Earhardt, encouraged him to run for office—which, of course, he did.

But no one, it seems, looked into his background—or even scanned his Facebook page—save for the liberal outlets Alternet and American Independent. (And, amazingly, no one at the NCGOP has told Robinson to go scrub his page of some of these posts.) If they did, they would have found that while he most certainly loves his guns and looooooves his Trump, he really, really does not like gay people. Or trans people. Or the homosexual agenda. Or the Obamas. Or the Clintons. Or the movie Black Panther. Or social justice. Or abortion rights. Or marijuana legalization. Or Mitt Romney. Or Democrats, who are communists—i.e., satanists. And that “globalist” remark might not have been a slip of the keyboard.

So let’s take a look back at Mark Robinson’s unfiltered thoughts before and after he became the NCGOP’s choice for lieutenant governor. Here he is, in his own words.

On the LGBTQ community, who are devil-worshipers coming for your children: “The sick, deranged, sexual degenerates who promote this type of demonic behavior are the ones who will take the next step in our continuing moral decline toward total depravity. Free love, then homosexuality. Now the next push; the sexualization of the perverts most cherished target, CHILDREN. These devil worshiping child molesters will not stop until they can legally abuse God's most precious gifts to us.”

He also thinks that parents of trans children have “mentally raped” their kids: “Those adults who CHOOSE to follow the path of gender ‘transitioning’ have that right, but children should not be part of this. Children are being used as propagandized shields in the fight to force the sexual preferences of a few down the collective throat of the American people. From teaching ‘gender fluidity’ to grade schoolers, to story time with drag queens, to nine year olds sexually dancing for grown ups, those who intend to victimize children for their own sake are on the march. Those who push these agendas do so by bullying society with threats of castigation. They have created a climate of fear that pushes the painfully obvious voices of reality and reason from the conversation.

“Well I WILL NOT be bullied and I WILL NOT be silenced. No friendship, no kinship, no job, no public office is worth staying silent while these children are being mentally raped. Those who push these agendas can count me as an ENEMY. I will speak up against you at EVERY turn and rally those around me to do the same. Crucify me if you like. The wicked crucified Christ for telling the truth, so I’ll be in GOOD company.”

More thoughts on gay people, from 2017: “You CAN NOT love God and support the homosexual agenda.”

And more, from 2018, on gay rights being the end of civilization: “I posted this back in 2014. Sadly, it is currently being proven true. We have pushed homosexuality over the top. Mark my words PEDOPHILLA is next, which will be closely followed by the END of civilization as we know it.”

After the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016: “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. Sorry if this offends anyone, but I'm not falling for the media/pop culture ‘okey-doke.’”

On Michelle Obama, in January 2017: “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.” (Get it? Michelle Obama is a man.) He called Barack Obama a “worthless, anti-American atheist who wanted to bring this nation to it knees, then raise it back to it's feet as a European style socialist hell hole.”

Here’s another very funny joke about gender roles (we think?): “It’s odd that the left doesn’t call masculinity ‘toxic’ when it’s competing against women in female athletics.”

One more: “It seems men aren’t being encouraged to excel anywhere these days...except in female athletics.”

And another: “The same people who claim the new Rambo movie is to ‘manly’ are the same people who think it’s okay for the homecoming queen to BE a man.”

Here he is posting a birther meme.

In a now-deleted post, saved for posterity in a screenshot, he disparages Muslims.

On African Americans who support the Democratic Party: “Half of black Democrats don't realize they are slaves and don't know who their masters are. The other half don't care.”

He called Black Panther a movie made by the “satanic minions in Hollywood” and “a product that was made in the dominion of the Devil.” He also expressed amazement that African Americans supported a superhero movie “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic marxist. How can this trash, that was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets, invoke any pride?”

(Shekels, you say? Hmm.)

In February, while running for lieutenant governor, he called Bernie Sanders a “disgusting socialist”—really, par for the course in a GOP primary—and criticized him for wanting to legalized cannabis: “That disgusting socialist Bernie Sanders is actually pitching legalizing dope which has destroyed black communities, and expanding welfare which has destroyed the black family, to BLACK VOTERS!”

In January, he accused Governor Cooper of welcoming refugees for nefarious purposes: “Governor Cooper’s ‘welcoming’ of ‘refugees’ is as easy to see through as freshly cleaned windows. It is painfully obvious he is attempting to set the stage for creating ‘sanctuary cites’ [sic] to protect those who have thumbed their noses at our federal immigration laws. In doing this, the main goal is to expand an entitled voting class that depends on the welfare state for its sustenance. Governor Cooper is no more than a socialist wolf in humanitarian clothes. He claims to stand for those in need, but we know the truth. His party rejected ‘faith’ on national television. And the unborn need ‘safety.’ He vetoed that need.”

In December, he blamed America’s education system for Trump’s impeachment: “Our 2nd Amendment is under attack because we don’t TEACH the Constitution anymore. Our young people want socialism because we don’t TEACH history anymore. Our Constitutional Republic is being called a democracy because we don’t TEACH civics anymore. And our President is being impeached by those who helped create the current ‘education’ system and those who were indoctrinated in the current ‘education’ system.”

He does not like democracy (and is pedantic—wrongly so, hilariously—about that word): “Those who defend our REPUBLIC do so to keep us from becoming a democracy.”

He posted that ex-football player Michael Vick’s dog-murdering doesn’t bother him that much because abortion is legal: “I’ll start worrying about ex-con football players who ILLEGALLY killed dogs after we stop licensed physicians from LEGALLY KILLING CHILDREN.”

He followed up, emphasizing that eliminating reproductive rights is his top priority: “Killing and torturing animals is absolutely terrible. But here is the stark and sickening difference. The cruel killing and tearing apart of animals is ILLEGAL. The murder of the most innocent HUMANS on earth IS NOT. That difference SICKENS ME, and it is my HIGHEST priority to fight to change that.”

Robinson posted … whatever this is … in response to Confederate statues be removed: “While the racially blinded are pulling down statues of dead men, the wicked are busy erecting temples to baal in which they will sacrifice the living in the womb.”

He is proudly authoritarian: “The safety of our nation is in peril because those who despise God, discipline, and law and order want to disarm those who believe in God, discipline, and law and order.”

He’s not bothered by asylum-seekers being separated from their families at the border: “‘American immigration law’ is not causing people to be ‘separated from their families.’ BREAKING American immigration law is causing that separation.”

He does not like social justice or pastors who promote it: “Pastors who ‘fight for social justice’ instead of standing un-afraid for the WORD OF GOD should trade their ‘high collars’ for dog collars.”

He doesn’t like the media: “The mainstream media is full of a bunch of hyper-sensitive, deceitful, childlike liars who willfully enflame passions through the spreading of false narratives.”

He doesn’t like Mitt Romney: “The left ‘loves’ CONservatives like Mitt Romney. You know, the ‘thinking’ conservative who is ‘educated’ and refined. The one that will reach across the aisle and find ‘common ground.’ The one who respects the voices of dissent and allows all voices to be heard. The one that....Okay let’s be real. What the left really likes are the spineless jellybacks that won’t speak up and won’t fight back. The ones whose only fight is a quest for power and will do ANYTHING to maintain a seat at the table that provides such. The ones who are toothless lap dogs who will lounge in luxury while the house is ransacked and robbed. The ones who speak loudest when they are being exposed as a no good, do nothing, weak kneed, stooges. The ones like Mitt Romney.”

And, finally, he is proud to have been endorsed by Ted Nugent—who, in 2012, endorsed Mitt Romney.

Contact editor in chief Jeffrey C. Billman at jbillman@indyweek.com.

DEAR READERS, WE NEED YOUR HELP NOW MORE THAN EVER. Support independent local journalism by joining the INDY Press Club today. Your contributions will keep our fearless watchdog reporting and essential arts and culture coverage viable in the Triangle, coronavirus be damned.