It’s officially ‘Mark Madness’: Mark Robinson threatens our freedom, safety, and way of life – and he hates basketball
North Carolina was one of 15 states and one territory to hold its “Super Tuesday” primary election earlier this week. As expected, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson won the Republican nomination for governor.
While pre-election polling had Robinson’s two opponents, state treasurer Dale Folwell and attorney Bill Graham, polling in single digits, the two combined for around 35% of the vote on Tuesday night – perhaps due to the realization from some Republicans that Robinson is simply too extreme to appeal to enough voters to defeat the Democratic nominee Attorney General Josh Stein.
Now that Robinson is officially the nominee, the Coalition Against Robinson’s Extremism (CARE), which Progress North Carolina Action is a part of, is running a full-court press to educate voters about the threat our current lieutenant governor poses to North Carolinians’ freedom, safety and way of life. Dubbed “Mark Madness,” this campaign is focused on some of Robinson’s most troubling policy positions, including his beliefs about education, the environment, gun violence and reproductive freedom.
Education:
- He has repeatedly denigrated hardworking educators and the public education system.
- His extreme plans for our education system will ensure our children fall behind their peers in other states. Robinson wants to eliminate science and history from elementary school curricula and cut crucial funding from our public schools to give taxpayer-funded private school vouchers to millionaires.
- In his current role, he has used state resources to harass educators about so-called “indoctrination” in schools and led efforts to censor educators from teaching the truth about America’s history.
Environment:
- He has repeatedly called climate change “junk science” and “pseudoscience” and ridiculed climate scientists by suggesting that “sure, climate change is real – it happens four times a year, it’s called seasons!”
- He called educators “liars” for teaching about climate change and has called for the removal of science from elementary schools.
- He has said he would work to keep North Carolina’s “climate change cabal” in chains and has pledged to “relax regulations” as governor.
Gun Violence:
- Less than two weeks after the 2018 tragedy in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 students and faculty dead, he called teenage survivors “spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN,” “stupid kids,” “spoiled little bastards,” and “silly little immature ‘media prosti-tots’” who need to “shut up.”
- He has suggested that school shootings occur because we have “purged prayer from the hallways of those schools.”
- He opposes universal background checks and is an NRA Board Member and a frequent headliner of NRA events. The NRA spent more than $82,000 to get Robinson elected in 2020 and has fully endorsed him this year, giving him the NRA’s highest accolades – an “A+” rating – and their “unwavering support.”
Reproductive Freedom:
- He has said that as governor he would sign a law to make abortion illegal in North Carolina, even when a woman is raped, the victim of incest, or may lose her life.
- His insistence that life begins at conception could even threaten access to IVF and contraception for North Carolinians.
- He has said that when a woman becomes pregnant “it’s not your body anymore” and has called a woman who had an abortion a “heffer.” He also called breastfeeding mothers “shameless attention hogs.”
In addition to his dangerous views on nearly every issue that impacts the lives of North Carolinians, he also hates one of the things that North Carolina is best known for – basketball.
Robinson has said, “I’d rather watch blind monkeys play marbles in the blazing sun than watch basketball on TV” and that “Basketball sucks. I’ve ALWAYS hated it and the older I get the more I dislike it!!!!!”
You can’t represent this state and not respect the sport of basketball, or at least lie about it.
Click here to vote in CARE’s “Mark Madness” bracket.
