Gubernatorial candidate who has trafficked in antisemitism likens current politics to Nazi Germany
Mark Robinson, lieutenant governor of North Carolina, on March 4, 2023. Photo by Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh June 12, 2023
Mark Robinson, a GOP candidate for governor of North Carolina in 2024, likened the current political climate in the U.S. to Nazi-era Germany and compared his political opponents to Hitler in a speech at the North Carolina Republican Convention Sunday. Robinson, who has been accused of making antisemitic remarks in the past, is expected to be endorsed by former President Donald Trump in the GOP primary. The presumed Democratic nominee, Attorney General Josh Stein, is Jewish.
“We look back at history, we look at the Germans and we look at the Japanese, we think, how in the world did those people let that happen? Why did they not do something about it?” Robinson said in remarks to delegates at the gathering. “Could they not have seen the disaster that was heading towards them. It’s time for us to take a look at ourselves and ask ourselves that question. We see the disaster coming.”
Robinson also compared himself to a young American naval officer on a Higgins boat — a type of landing craft — in a 1944 battle that turned the tide of World War II toward the Allies. “That young man will look at you and tell you, ‘I don’t want to be here. But I don’t have a choice,’” he said. “‘You see, Hitler is bombing his way across Europe and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.’”
Robinson, 54, who was elected in 2020, has veered into Holocaust denial. “The liberal media deliberately focuses on the topic of the Nazi and their purported murder of ‘6 million Jews’ for a specific purpose,” he wrote in a past Facebook post, reported by Talking Points Memo earlier this year. “Simultaneously, those same liberals consciously refrain from addressing the Communist regime and their responsibility for the deaths of over 100 million individuals throughout the 20th century.”
During the 2020 election, Robinson faced scrutiny for past racist and antisemitic comments. In social media posts, he invoked the “globalist” conspiracy aimed at destroying Trump and suggested that the superhero film Black Panther was “created by an agnostic Jew” to “pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets,” using a Yiddish slur to describe Black people.
Robinson is the Republican frontrunner in the race to succeed Gov. Roy Cooper, a term-limited Democrat, in next year’s election. He is in a dead heat with Stein in a general election matchup, according to a recent poll.
Trump, also addressing the convention, teased an endorsement of Robinson. “I’m going to endorse Mark but I’m not going to tell you about it tonight,” Trump said. “We’ll save it for another time but you can count on it, Mark.”
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