One of the reasons I’ve been less angry with the CNN town hall than most other liberals is that I don’t believe Donald Trump is particularly dangerous. During his first campaign and presidency, Trump did things harmful to America that other Republicans and right-wing operatives dared not – but now Trump’s techniques have been absorbed by the GOP and the LAW. Even at the height of his power, Trump operated like a cog in a Republican machine that had corroded democracy and demonized enemies for years.
Clearly, Trump has operated the machine much more efficiently. But long before launching its first campaign, the Republican machine was doing Trumpian things, but with a little more caution. Pre-Trump Republicans halted the Florida recount in 2000 and hacked into a corrupt Supreme Court decision that placed George W. Bush in the White House; Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election results by force. The pre-Trump Republicans were racist in their code; Trump abandoned the code. Pre-Trump Republicans imposed restrictions on voting and persuaded millions of Americans that near-nonexistent “voter fraud” was rampant; Trump said any election he lost was rigged. Pre-Trump Republicans staged a hostile takeover of federal courts; Trump simply finished the job.
Republicans were dangerous before Trump. They would have been dangerous even if Trump had never entered politics. Now they are both Trumpish and non-Trumpish dangerous, and those dangers will still be there even if Trump drops dead tomorrow.
That’s why I wish more attention would be paid to Republicans other than Trump.
Today, The Washington Post reports that President Biden’s re-election campaign intends to run for North Carolina and possibly Florida. Pumping money into Florida seems like a waste of time, but Biden lost North Carolina by 1.3 points in 2020 and Barack Obama won it in 2008. The state now has a Democratic governor and Democrats lost the Senate races in 2020 and 2022 by 2 and 3 points, respectively.
Moreover, the Republican candidate for governor in 2024 is almost certain to be a hatemonger by the name of Mark Robinson.
Robinson is the kind of Republican I wish he got more attention in the national media. It should be a household name, like Marjorie Taylor Greene. It is mentioned in the Job story, but only in the 20th and 21st paragraphs, though what readers are told is quite disturbing:
The Republican frontrunner for the job, Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, supports an outright ban on abortion and opposes same-sex marriage. He is known for his controversial statements, such as calling homosexuality and transgenderism “filth” and calling the surviving students of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting “media prostitutes”. He boasted of owning a semi-automatic rifle in case the government got “too big for his breeches”.
“In Mark Robinson, you have a very powerful force that will not only win over the Democratic base, but will sway a lot of independent voters because they’re not going to particularly tolerate a gubernatorial candidate who has an AR-15 and who is ready to shoot government officials,” said [Governor Roy] Cooper, who is barred by law from running for a third term.
I think the AR-15 line is much less toxic by US standards than the other remarks – and there are so many more beyond what the Job reports. Some examples :
In strongly worded Facebook posts, he denounced a ‘globalist’ plot to ‘destroy’ former President Donald Trump and targeted Black Pantherthe Marvel movie whose titular protagonist, as Robinson put it, was “created by an agnostic Jew and filmed by [a] Satanic Marxist. He went on to allege, using a Yiddish slur, that the film “was only created to get the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets”.
… from Raleigh News & Observer unearthed an interview in which Robinson spoke with a fringe pastor, Sean Moon, who claimed that the modern incarnation of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse includes China, the CIA, Islam and the Rothschild family of “international bankers who govern each national or federal country”. style of reserve-type central bank in each country.
Rather than object to the blatantly anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, Robinson growled in agreement. “That’s absolutely correct,” he said.
Robinson, who is black, seems to despise black people:
In various articles over the years, he referred to black people as “confused-headed niggers,” “monkeys,” and “monkeys.”
“February is Black History Month. I guess the shortest month of the year is all we need to learn about the separate but equal history of a people who accomplished so little,” Robinson wrote in 2014.
… In a 2014 post, he shared a photo of a controversial t-shirt attacking the NAACP civil rights organization that had been sold by a Republican politician from North Carolina. The image showed a white man holding a Confederate flag and urinating on the letters “NAACP”.
“I think the shirt was completely unnecessary,” Robinson wrote. “The NAACP has done a great job of pissing on itself and its legacy for many years now.”
Robinson is also a conspiracy theorist:
In 2016, while watching the Summer Olympics, in addition to being outraged by the Muslim fencer, Robinson was disturbed by the start of the games.
“AND NOW IT’S TIME TO PLAY…………..How many occult symbols can you spot in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics!!!!!!!” he wrote.
… Robinson also saw conspiracies behind organizations that offer abortions.
“Planned Parenthood; Working the Demons, with Liberal Support, for the New World Order.
#takedownplannedparenthood,” he wrote in 2015.
…Even reality TV was proof of the spreading darkness for Robinson.
“I know this may sound paranoid and crazy, but I truly believe that the ‘judgment’ format of these ‘reality’ contest shows (i.e. American Idol, DWTS, Chopped, etc.) is a sign of things to come in the REALITY of the New World Order,” Robinson wrote in 2015, before adding an ominous hashtag, “#timewilltell”
This man is the lieutenant governor of a swing state. He leads the primary polls for governor by 34 points, and he is slightly ahead of the likely Democratic nominee in one poll. And here’s the key point: Robinson, who is 54, will be like this long after Trump exited politics. Maybe Trump persuaded Republicans that someone like Robinson could be politically viable, but decades of ugly speeches on the Internet, Fox News and talk radio are what do people like Trump and Robinson viable. These forces will exist long after Trump is gone.
And then there’s Mike Flynn. The hill reports that Trump hopes to give Flynn a job in his administration if he is re-elected.
“I will say, General Flynn, he is a general. It’s a man. He suffered abuse like no one could have endured, and he came out bigger, better, stronger than ever before,” Trump said by phone at the “ReAwaken America” rally at Trump National Doral Miami, according to a report. by Rolling Stone.
THE Hill The story gives us a brief look at Flynn’s career since 2017:
Flynn, whom Trump fired early in his administration, pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI for speaking with the Russian ambassador, although he later withdrew his plea.
He has been surrounded by other controversies related to the 2020 transfer of power and previous dealings with foreign entities, and has been linked to QAnon and backed Trump’s allegations of widespread voter fraud. He was pardoned by Trump when the former president left office.
When Flynn is portrayed this way, the idea that he might return to power only seems mildly unsettling. But Flynn isn’t just a guy who embraced QAnon, called for a military coup to remove Trump to the White House, or argued that America should be a Christian theocracy:
“If we want to have one nation under God, which we have to do, we have to have one religion,” he said. “One nation under God and one religion under God, right? All of us, working together.
He’s also co-founder of the ReAwaken America Tour, a traveling roadshow that peddles raw sewage from speakers like these guys:
Charlie Ward, an anti-Semite who shared posts praising Adolf Hitler for supposedly “warning us” about Judaism; asserting that “VIRUSES are man-made (Jewish)”; and calling 9/11 a Jewish conspiracy. He also promoted a book that claims “the official Holocaust narrative cannot be supported” and shared a video attacking alleged Jewish media for allegedly lying about the Holocaust.
Ward, who is a QAnon supporter, has also promoted fringe conspiracy theories claiming the Earth is flat, the moon landing was faked, and figures such as President Joe Biden…are actually “reptilian humanoid hybrids.” “.
… Scott McKay … asserted that Jews are imposters and perpetrated 9/11; setting up banking systems “in exchange for the bloody sacrifice of children”; and staged presidential assassinations, among many other crimes. McKay also praised Hitler and said he was trying to create “a banking system for the people and the free world”.
Keep in mind that Flynn does this independent of Trump. Trump’s son Eric appears frequently on the tour, and Donald Trump, as noted above, phoned in a Florida ReAwaken rally, but the tour does not depend on Donald Trump for support, and would no doubt continue. if he died tomorrow. Flynn is only 64, more than a decade younger than Trump. It’s a second career for him, and he won’t be giving it up anytime soon. If he runs for president in 2028 and votes reasonably well, I won’t be surprised.
The threat of modern conservatism does not begin and end with Trump. It may seem hard to believe now, but when Trump is gone from the stage, there is likely to be little lessening of the toxicity of our politics.
Republished with permission from the No More Mister Nice blog.