Huffington Post Calls Mark Robinson an “Unbelievably Bonkers Conspiracy Theorist”
In case you missed it: Today, the Huffington Post published an article profiling the “bonkers conspiracy theorist running for governor of North Carolina.” The article highlights some of Mark Robinson’s previously reported claims: that 9/11 was an “inside job,” that climate change is “junk science,” and that Parkland survivors were “paid actors.”
It turns out, that’s far from the last of it. According to Robinson’s “lesser-noticed social media posts,” he’s spread conspiracy theories about everything from the media to the Obama family and from Beyonce to Boko Haram — “extremism” that political analysts predict “will ultimately backfire on him.”
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The Huffington Post: The Unbelievably Bonkers Conspiracy Theorist Running For Governor Of North Carolina
- “Robinson, who is the state’s lieutenant governor, has said he ‘wouldn’t be surprised’ if the 1969 moon landing was fake and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an ‘inside job.’ He’s ‘SERIOUSLY skeptical’ of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. He falsely accused David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, of being a paid actor. He’s claimed that climate change is based on ‘junk science.’”
- “In lesser-noticed social media posts, Robinson has said that news coverage of police shootings is part of a media conspiracy ‘designed to push US towards their new world order.’ He and his wife both liked a since-deleted Facebook comment that stated, ‘WWG1WGA are my ‘Identity’ letters,’ a reference to the QAnon rallying cry ‘Where we go one, we go all.’ In October 2018, on a day when authorities intercepted pipe bombs intended for President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CNN, Robinson suggested on Facebook that they had done it to themselves. ‘If you can’t beat ’em, bomb yourself,’ he wrote.”
- “He followed that with another Facebook post claiming, ‘This entire ‘bombing’ story is faker than a $20 Rolex sold on a New York City sidewalk.’ Months later, another post on his Facebook page parroted the conspiracy theory that the pipe bomb incident was ‘manufactured’ and ‘fake.’”
- “Robinson is also a regular proponent of conspiracies claiming the music industry is being run by Satan and the Illuminati. He has called Beyoncé’s music ‘satanic’ and described Jay-Z as ‘demonic’ and sent by Satan to turn people away from Jesus. He suggested that the 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria was orchestrated by billionaire Democratic philanthropist George Soros, a frequent target of antisemitic attacks by Republicans.”
- “This Republican state official has also routinely pushed the ‘New World Order’ conspiracy theory, which involves forced depopulation programs, a secretive ruling class of reptiles and ‘elite globalists’ on a satanic mission to bring about the ‘end times.’”
- “I think this does bother people on the Republican side,” David McLennan, a political science professor at Meredith College, said of Robinson being a wild conspiracy theorist. “They just haven’t figured out how to organize their efforts to help another candidate compete against Robinson.”
- But Greene predicted that Robinson’s extremism will ultimately backfire on him, just as it did with the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee in 2020, Dan Forest.
- “Dan Forest’s problem, and the reason he lost, was because he was seen as too extreme of a social conservative. Mark Robinson is Forest on steroids,” Steven Greene, a political science professor at North Carolina State University, said.
- “We have seen ever since the elevation of Trump, Republican primary voters, again and again, time and time and time again, choosing the candidate who makes an awful general election candidate in a purple state,” he said. “My presumption is Mark Robinson will fall right into this pattern.”