“Martin Luther King on steroids!”
Huh? Did I hear that right? No wait. Maybe it was a buildup of wax in my ears. Did I see that right? Or perhaps it was a coffee smudge on my eyeglasses.
But no, as much as I’d like to blame it on my lying eyes or deceitful ears, I heard and read that right. Those were the exact words from the mouth of former president Trump in endorsing Republican Mark Robinson for governor of North Carolina. But he didn’t leave it at that – “I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you’re Martin Luther King times two.”
Okay readers, calm down and take a deep breath. We’ll get through this. I promise.
Now in case you didn’t know, Mark Robinson, the newly minted “darling of the right,” would be the state’s first Black governor of North Carolina. But not to be ignored is that our “King on steroids” is extremism incarnate – gun-loving, gay-hating, antisemitic who’s running against a far better qualified Democrat Josh Stein who happens to be Jewish. I have a hunch that Mr. Stein is relishing having been handed such a, eh, “wonderful” opponent.
Four years ago, Robinson invoked a bizarre hypothetical in which he said he’d “absolutely” like to return to the days when the 19th Amendment didn’t exist, when -brace yourself – women didn’t have the right to vote.
And as recent as March 5th, our “King on steroids” implied at a campaign event that transgender women should be arrested if they use women’s restrooms.
“We’re going to defend women in this state,” he said in a speech. “That means if you’re a man on Friday night and all of the sudden on Saturday, you feel like a woman and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the mall, you will be arrested — or whatever we got to do to you.” At an event in Greenville, Robinson said people who “are confused” about their gender should “find a corner outside somewhere to go” to the bathroom.
Robinson once referred to gay people as “slime,” and said that African Americans aren’t due reparations for past injustices, rather they should pay reparations to America. Whereas now he’s anti-abortion he once paid a woman to get an abortion.
The Holocaust denying “King on steroids” claimed that feminism was created by Satan, that men who identify as feminists are “about as MANLY as a pair of lace panties,” has referred to feminists as “fem-nazis” and described those who support equal rights for women as “sexist, hairy armpit having, poo-poo hat wearing pinkos.”
In 2018, Robinson offered some thoughts about what he seemed to see as a Jewish plot behind the hit movie “Black Panther.” The title character, he wrote, was “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic Marxist,” calling the movie “trash” that was “created to pull the shekels” from the pockets of Black people, whom he referred to using a Yiddish slur.
Now if you’d think that it couldn’t get any worse folks, Greensboro-born Robinson once referred to the Civil Rights movement in the United States as “full of crap,” the irony of which is that Greensboro is the site of lunch counter sit ins by Black North Carolina A&T State University students, a seminal moment in the Civil Rights movement this “King on steroids” disparaged. (By the way, Robinson dropped out of A&T)?
So, what gives readers? Is there something in the water folks in North Carolina are consuming these days that would allow such jaw dropping nonsense to emerge from the mouth of this 300 pound buffoon? I thought I’d seen everything but was dumbfounded and had a “déjà vu all over again” moment when I recalled another Black North Carolinian by the name of Vernon Jones, who proclaimed himself a “Black Donald Trump” while seeking public office here in Georgia. Fortunately this documented woman abuser flamed out, lost by a landslide, and disappeared into obscurity.
Now don’t get wrong, I love North Carolina. I went to college there and have close friends there today. Like me, those friends are just as bewildered and embarrassed by this Robinson nuttiness. And like yours truly, they realize that opportunists will always spring up after gauging which way the wind is blowing, see what’s garnering the news cycles and develop attention getting headlines of their own. With your garden variety Robinson types, it’s publicity over principles as they attempt to ease themselves into the evening news for a moment in the sun, speaking engagements, book deals or a gem of an assignment in the next administration. When one “King on steroids” exists the scene, there are always other “Kings” (and “Queens”) ready to step into the limelight.
The “Kings on steroids” ilk will utter stuff that even they don’t believe but slick enough to exploit segments of the population yearning for comic relief from times of stress about wars overseas, the economy, skyrocketing food prices and being run over by “those people” crossing the southern border.
With “Kings on steroids,” out goes self-respect, dignity, humility and any semblance of embarrassment as thousands of their onlookers enjoy their minstrel shows, high five and take selfies with them, and drop a few bucks into their collection plates and GoFundMe links.
So come the next election in North Carolina, the hope here is that we will hear the word “landslide,” as in what Josh Stein won by, or that word the “King on steroids” Robinson lost by.
Fingers crossed!
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