'Some folks need killing': Far-right MAGA candidate praises violence in unhinged church rant

05 July 2024

Despite his long history of making extremes statements — from Holocaust denial to saying that women shouldn't have been given the right to vote — far-right MAGA Republican Mark Robinson, according to some polls, is quite competitive in North Carolina's 2024 gubernatorial race. An East Carolina University poll in June found Josh Stein, the Democratic nominee, leading Robinson by only 1 percent.

Robinson has made no effort to soften his image during his gubernatorial campaign. And according to The New Republic's Greg Sargent, the far-right MAGA Republican made some more extreme statements during a June 30 speech in a church in White Lake, North Carolina.

Robinson told the crowd, "Some folks need killing. It's time for somebody to say it. It's not a matter of vengeance. It's not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It's a matter of necessity."

Sargent notes that those Robinson advocated "killing" included "wicked people" as well as socialists and communists, adding that the North Carolina lieutenant governors has a "long history of wildly radical and unhinged moments."

According to Sargent, "He has linked homosexuality to pedophilia, called for the arrest of trans women, pushed hallucinogenic antisemitic conspiracy theories, endorsed the vile 'birther' conspiracy about Barack Obama, described Michelle Obama as a man, hinted at the need to violently oppose federal law enforcement and the government, and posted memes mocking and denying the brutal, violent assault on Nancy Pelosi's husband, among many other things."

Sargent adds, "His latest rant is yet another example of an ugly game widely played on the MAGA right, one supercharged by Donald Trump. It entails hinting that right-wing political violence is necessary and justified because a ubiquitous, all-seeing, all-powerful leftist threat — one that is pure invention — is already supposedly attacking and persecuting conservatives on a mass scale."

The journalist emphasizes that Robinson's comments are not an anomaly, but part of a pattern of MAGA Republicans calling for violence against political opponents. And he cited Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts as an example.

Roberts recently said of the right-wing think tank's Project 2025, "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

Sargent warns, "In this, Roberts essentially said that if liberals and Democrats too vehemently resist MAGA's intent to stock the government with corrupt loyalists to Trump and unleash mass persecution of the opposition, violence will be necessary to crush them — and if so, it will be their fault for not meekly accepting what they have coming to them."

The journalist adds, "Meanwhile, Trump himself recently suggested that political violence may erupt if the presidential election isn't conducted with 'fairness' and is stolen from him, by which he really means, 'if I don’t win.'"

Read Greg Sargent's full New Republic article at this link.

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