Throughout the day on Thursday, word started to circulate that a damaging story was on the way about Mark Robinson, the lieutenant governor of North Carolina, the Republican candidate for governor in that state, and a man who Donald Trump has referred to as “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
Speculation was that the story, whatever it was, was so damaging that it could lead to Robinson leaving the race.
Robinson has long been a highly controversial figure, especially known for bizarre online behavior. He has denied the Holocaust, has had news stories about his porn booth visits, and has admitted that he and his wife once had an abortion. Robinson’s antics have not only threatened to put the state out of reach for the GOP but have even put the state in play in the presidential race, after North Carolina has gone red every year since 2012.
But once the rumors emerged Thursday, there was a lot of head-scratching about how bad the story could be, considering all of the terrible stuff about Robinson that had emerged before.
In a social media message Thursday, Robinson called whatever was coming from CNN “lies,” and certainly didn’t sound like he was preparing to leave the race. He even busted out Clarence Thomas’ old “high-tech lynching” line:
I wanted to take a minute to address the latest outrageous lies coming from my opponent’s dishonest campaign: #ncgov #ncpol pic.twitter.com/RtteVUiozr
— Mark Robinson (@markrobinsonNC) September 19, 2024
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Shortly afterword, the CNN story arrived, and yes, it’s very damning.
Robinson, per the story from CNN’s K-File team, “made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and expressed support for reinstating slavery.”
BREAKING
Mark Robinson made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and expressed support for reinstating slavery.
Despite a recent history of anti-transgender… pic.twitter.com/MYtu8ig5Wq
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) September 19, 2024
The candidate, who is mostly opposed to transgender rights, also once expressed his preference for transgender porn and called himself a “perv.” The comments were made on a website called “Nude Africa,” which has a message board, and they were between 2008 and 2012.
Robinson, per CNN, has denied the story, although the network tied him to the username that made the comments, through “a litany of biographical details and a shared email address between the two.”
CNN added that it is “reporting only a small portion of Robinson’s comments on the website given their graphic nature.”
He even said not-so-nice things about Martin Luther King, to whom Trump has compared him:
“You’re like Martin Luther King Jr. on steroids.” – Donald Trump to Mark Robinson
Robinson’s thoughts on MLK, as posted to the “Nude Africa” porn site message board: https://t.co/81SErSKzS9 pic.twitter.com/F38g2wvrJK
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) September 19, 2024
Prior to the arrival of the CNN story, Carolina Journal reported that Robinson was “under pressure from staff and members of the Trump campaign to withdraw from the governor’s race due to the nature of the story.”
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery