North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson wipes his brow as he speaks at the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference at the Washington Hilton on June 21, 2024, in Washington, D.C. | Source: Anna Moneymaker / Getty
The affinity MAGA Republicans have for advocating violence because they know quasi-tough talk is one of their constituents’ love languages (along with blatant bigotry and easily debunkable misinformation) is a thing that should be studied. It’s almost fascinating.
I mean, these are people who tend to look like they would fold over if you nudged them in the chest a little too hard, but they’re always talking about starting another “civil war” or a “second American Revolution,” or, in their orangey-white nationalist messiah’s case, fantasizing about shooting someone on 5th Avenue and calling for followers to “fight like hell” and then acting innocent when a violent riot actually breaks out. (This is as good a time as any to remind you of that time Donald Trump hid in the White House bunker because the protesters outside were getting a little too rowdy.)
MORE: MAGA Republican Mark Robinson’s Hateful History Of Spewing Conspiracy Rhetoric
Recently, North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson took the GOP’s tendency to be the political world’s version of “studio gangsters” a step further by flat-out declaring we should simply start killing “bad” people before dismissively speculating that “some liberal” will have something negative to say about the unhinged idea that the U.S. should essentially do away with the entire constitutional concept of due process and just start offing people who are accused of horrific crimes.
“You know, there was a time when we used to meet evil on the battlefield and guess what we did to it. WE KILLED IT!” Robinson said during a speech at Lake Church in the small town of White Lake, N.C. “We didn’t quibble about it. We didn’t argue about it. We didn’t fight about it. WE KILLED IT!”
“When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, what did we do? We flew to Japan and we killed the Japanese army and navy. We didn’t even quibble about it,” Robinson continued before citing the U.S. fight in Nazi Germany as an example of America going to war without a second thought. “We didn’t argue and capitulate and talk about: ‘Well maybe we shouldn’t fight the Nazis that hard.’ No, their bad—KILLED IT!”
Robinson, like many MAGA conservatives, is showing off how incomplete his understanding of history is. Otherwise, he would know that the U.S. didn’t enter into World War II until about two years after it began in 1939, which is the same year President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously declared that while the United States would remain neutral in law, he could “not ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well.” In other words, America did, indeed, “quibble” about it before officially getting involved.
Besides advocating that the U.S. declare war on a whim without giving it a second thought—because that has worked out so well in the past—Robinson, N.C.’s current lieutenant governor, wants to outright murder “people who have evil intent,” ambiguously “wicked people,” socialists and Communists, and people who are accused of “torturing and murdering and raping.” (The last thing is certainly something many of us would agree with, but, again, we have this little thing called due process that won’t and shouldn’t allow folks to be killed without a trial, conviction and death sentence.)
“Some liberal somewhere is going to say that sounds awful. Too bad! Some folks need killing!” Robinson declared. “It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”
Robinson has a history of being hateful and spreading nonsensical conspiracy theories, because, again, these are the MAGA minion love languages. He described COVID-19 as a “globalist” conspiracy to destroy Trump. He called members of the LGBTQ+ community “filth” and falsely linked homosexuality to pedophilia. And, of course, he leaned into his role as a “Black friend” to the white-and-aggrieved world of MAGA by suggesting it’s actually Black Americans who owe reparations for slavery.
Yes, the America that conservatives want to make great again is a scary place where marginalized people will suffer the most and where the rule of law is treated like a weakness when it’s not being weaponized against any groups MAGA folks don’t like. Remember that when it’s time to vote in November.
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N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson Refuses To Step Down Amid Backlash For Calling LGBTQ ‘Filth’
