Why are Republicans only panicking about him now?

Mark Robinson, Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina and Republican candidate for
governor of North Carolina, on Aug. 14. Photo by Grant Baldwin/Getty Images

Contributing Columnist
Emily Tamkin
September 19, 2024

Suddenly, today, North Carolina Republicans reportedly began trying to pressure their gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson, into dropping out of the race.

For operatives of a major party to push their candidate to drop out, hours before the deadline to withdraw from the race and less than two months before election day, is exceedingly rare. Yet the Republicans had good reason to take such drastic actions: The publication of a CNN report revealing that Robinson had referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and wrote that he preferred Adolf Hitler to former President Barack Obama in an online forum, amid other racist and incendiary statements. 

But it’s not that Republicans suddenly developed a conscience. While Robinson’s comments reported in the piece are horrific, and should by any measure be considered disqualifying, they’re also par for the course for him. His antisemitism, in particular, has been well-reported; it is not news that the man is a bigot. So those watching Republicans push him to drop out now should ask: Are they doing so out of a desire to fight antisemitism and hatred, or because their candidate is polling poorly? 

Calling himself a “black NAZI” is not even, to my mind, the most noxious thing Robinson has said when it comes to Jews. 

In a 2018 post on Facebook, he wrote, “this foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash,” a thematic follow up to a 2017 post that read, “there is a REASON the liberal media fills the airwaves with programs about the NAZI and the ‘6 million Jews’ they murdered.” 

That same year, he wrote, “I am so sick of seeing and hearing people STILL talk about Nazis and Hitler and how evil and manipulative they were.” Also in 2017 (a prolific year, apparently), he wrote, “George Soros is alive. Adolf Hitler is dead” in a post that continued, “1000s of left wing liberal Marxist members of our media are alive (and brainwashing our societies). Adolf Hitler is dead.” 

The implication: More focus should be placed on the supposedly “live” threat of “Marxist socialism” than on the crimes of Hitler.

Of the popular 2018 movie Black Panther, he wrote, “How can this trash, that was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets” — using a racist Yiddish term for Black people — “invoke any pride?” The superhero was “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic marxist,” he added. 

He also approvingly included a quote by Hitler in a 2014 post about the importance of taking pride in one’s own race and civilization, although he did not name Hitler in the post. (The quote in question: “Pride in one’s own race — and that does not imply contempt for other races — is also a normal and healthy sentiment.”)

The comments reported in the CNN article, which Robinson has called a hit piece, are of a piece with these posts. Robinson, who if elected would be North Carolina’s first Black governor — his Democratic opponent, ironically, would be the state’s first Jewish governor — reportedly made some of them on a pornography site, prior to entering politics. He reportedly described himself as a “perv” and imagined a derogatory term he might have called Martin Luther King Jr. if he had been allowed to join the Ku Klux Klan. (Really). 

North Carolina deserves better. Any state would.

And yet somehow, neither local nor national Republicans took any steps to ensure North Carolina voters had a better option before now — despite the fact that Robinson’s antisemitic, hate-filled social media history was a matter of public knowledge, and would have been uncovered by any rudimentary vetting operations.

Jonathan Bridges, who managed a rival Republican gubernatorial campaign during North Carolina’s primary, said that Robinson should drop out “for the sake of Donald Trump’s victory in North Carolina.” But although Robinson’s proud claim to be a “black NAZI” is new information, these other posts were public when Trump in March praised Robinson as “better than Martin Luther King” Jr. and endorsed his candidacy. 

Scott Lassiter, who is running for state Senate in North Carolina, said, “North Carolinians deserve a viable choice in this election.”

Sure. But all of that was true long before today. It was true during the entirety of Robinson’s tenure as lieutenant governor of the state of North Carolina, a post he has held since 2021. It was true before, when he first ran to be lieutenant governor five years ago. So why speak up now?

The key is in the word “viable.” Robinson now looks like he’s going to lose: As of Thursday, his opponent, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, is polling 11 points ahead. (Stein refused to participate in a debate with Robinson, citing his “vile and dangerous” rhetoric.) One could be forgiven for concluding that Republican’s new concerns aren’t about Robinson’s shocking remarks about Hitler, Soros, Marxist Jews, or the Holocaust, but because they care about whether Robinson’s disastrous campaign will help or hurt the campaigns of other Republicans. 

Or, to put it another way: If Republicans were ahead in the polls, would they care about Robinson’s shocking bigotry — toward Jews, or anyone else?

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