OpEd: The Mystery Surrounding Mark Robinson's Master Bait-and-Switch

- Rob Yates, Communications Director 

Coo, coo, ca-choo, Mr. Robinson

When we look back at the 2024 election season, I think the thing we'll remember the most is how we elevated our political discourse, as a country... just a bunch of engaged, well informed citizens having erudite and productive conversations about difficult issues in good faith. 

For example, late last week CNN reported that Mark Robinson, GOP candidate for NC governor - shout out to North Carolina, keepin' it real - at one time in his life was practicing to write graphic erotica, and drafted some material on that great keeper of information, the internet. 

As far as extraordinary political stories go, this one had it all. Robinson allegedly posted on the message board section of a porn site, Nude Africa, for a period of roughly five years starting in 2008. The story provides screen shots where the user, "minisoldr," which CNN claims is Robinson, called himself a black nazi, hated on jews, romanticized about trans porn, detailed a brief-but-specific history of peeping on women in the locker room shower, and wrote a lot of graphic descriptions of things he implies he was doing involving his wife's sister, her friend, and lots of body fluids, including a fair bit of golden showers because of course, we go hard in '24.

Fair warning, they are legitimately graphic. Read them or don't, it has exactly nothing to do with any policy positions. I read them (and, full disclosure, I couldn't stop laughing). If this must be the rhetorical battlefield on which we engage, so be it, I'd rather be armed.

From Slippery Slope to "Dookey Chute"

Writing something like this, I try to present the absurdity of it all without being biased to one "side" as perceived by people who still think there's a difference. I usually feel like this requires that I share my perspective on the actual situation to try and minimize any accusations of bias by opening myself up to scrutiny. I'm not taking sides, because y'all are the same to me, but I still have an opinion on the matter. In this case, I can say that I am 99.9+ percent confident that those screen shots were authentic Robinson. 

Much more importantly, I also don't care. The screen shots are almost 20 years old, ostensibly written by someone who was not harming anyone else, under a reasonable expectation of privacy (pour one out for 2000s internet). It's absurd to act like they somehow have relevance today. This is coming from someone who thinks Robinson is a terrible candidate and would make a terrible governor. (Seriously, y'all could've had Mike Ross, Dale Folwell, and Mike Morgan. You chose this.)

Robinson runs on a pretty hard right moralistic platform, so I realize that, if legit, this appears immensely hypocritical on Robinson's part. I think it's true that he's a hypocrite, for example when his entire political career was sparked by a speech defending the Second Amendment, and yet he's failed to defend constitutional carry as his party has cowered away from the issue. Libertarians showed up to push for HB 189, not Republicans and definitely not Robinson. We're used to it.

But messages on a porn site from decades ago? …roughly as relevant to my life as the type of milkshake a politician orders at Cook Out. So no, I don't care about the posts. This was barely even newsworthy, and certainly not worth the dramatic Thursday-afternoon buildup to the announcement. I strongly believe that, had Robinson completely ignored this, it would have been relegated to discussion by the Angry Online People, and nothing more, by today or tomorrow. 

Ruh Roh, Mark, Urine Trouble

What happened next, though, was that brilliant twist at which the writers of America: The Reality Show have been adept the last few years. Robinson’s response to all this was to go on CNN and deny the story, then release a video calling them all liars, and then double down on the "this is fake" response. Faster than you can say "they're eating the pets," the NC GOP put out a press release defending him and much of the electorate has joined in. 

I have seen some intense back and forth as to the authenticity of the screen shots. In fact, this might end up being good for Robinson's campaign, which is losing to Stein worse than Tammika Brents did to Fallon Fox. His base of supporters has rallied, and there were even some reports that his fundraising spiked over the weekend, though I haven't found any evidence to confirm that.

Think about that... Americans distrust the legacy media so much that it is immediately more plausible to them that the media made up this story than it is that Robinson, about whom we've recently also learned likes adults-only shops and abortions when he's the one they benefit, was writing bawdy stuff on a porn site decades ago. In a vacuum, the evidence seems to point one way. When the story comes from CNN, though, it creates an ad hominem strong enough for a big chunk of people to instantly find "it was fake" the higher likelihood. And, to be fair, I get it.

Seriously, is there anyone reading this who would be surprised to find out it was made up? CNN has been a constant source of misinformation, disinformation, fabrication, misdirection, hyperbole, panic-pimping, prevarication, slander, propaganda, and outright lies for as long as Mark Robinson has been an aspiring adult-themes author. Further, CNN’s "it's complicated" relationship status with the truth has been decidedly one-sided, and it isn't the side Robinson is on.

Don't Piss on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining

I mean, it would be oddly specific if it was fraudulent, for sure. The part that would impress me the most is that whoever made the hoax found a writer who combines the Marquis de Sade's focus on celebrating love with the poignant empathy for the plight of humanity typically associated with Rudolf Jung, all built on top of a powerful narrative voice, eloquent in a unique simplicity wistfully reminiscent of Wesley Willis. 

And impressive for the creative team behind this great illusion to find his virtual alter ego and use that on the forged screen shots which it was then able to retroactively drop into a message board. And then planting his email address in the old Ashley Madison dump - absolute stroke of genius. Personally, I would love to have some of this digital time travel equipment.

Mark Robinson is not a lifelong politician, so when he had his not-so-wild sex parties, he didn't have the power of the federal government behind him to help hide it. His failure was not what he did (or didn't do...), it was taking too long to sell his soul to the machine. I can't blame him for that. 

A Steady Stream of News

Since the original disclosure by CNN and Robinson's tacit denial, the story has not gotten less weird. Almost his entire campaign staff quit. Then a convicted felon – for telecommunications-based voter fraud (read the story, it’s as awful as you’re thinking) – claimed to be his new campaign manager, a claim Robinson's campaign denied. The Republican Governor’s Association has stopped funding ads for Robinson in North Carolina, and several high-profile Republicans have withdrawn their support or distanced themselves from him.

For those keeping score, he also apparently asked internet sleuths not to investigate the claims on his behalf, although internet sleuths did turn up some further information that is potentially damaging to his position of being the victim of a Clarence-Thomas-style "cyber lynching." Now, Robinson has hired a law firm to investigate the claims made by CNN and defend him against them. And, most recently (as of finishing writing this Wednesday evening – I have redrafted it like 11 times as new developments come to light), much of his Lieutenant Governor staff has dipped out as well.

There are some who will see him hiring a law firm as proof that the story is, in fact, a fabrication. I think it’s a guarantee that we will know nothing new until after the election, at which point this will go away regardless. But that’s really the point, isn’t it? It’s all about the distraction.

A former president and current candidate was the subject of back-to-back assassination attempts, one of which made it unnervingly close to succeeding, but we don't talk about that. We do talk about Haitians eating pets, and that feels like we chose the serious topic. In fact, it's right up there with Kamala's brat, and Taylor Swift's endorsement, and the Olympic opening ceremony, and what song the Foo Fighters licensed (p.s. Dave, congrats?), and what candidate pretended to be in the military, and now what Mark Robinson wrote in a porn blog 15 years ago, or any of the other absurd things we're told are life or death, none of which have any bearing on how these people will operate in office. 

As far as the screen shots go, I find it hard to assign any meaningful importance to them in regards to the actual governor's race. However, if they were fabricated to influence the race, that is a big enough deal to put you in jail in the People’s Republic of California under Gavin Newsome.

Kidding aside, the accusation that this was fabricated is major. If CNN either went to great lengths to fake this oddly specific story that doesn’t take much of a leap of faith to believe, or even just failed to perform any due diligence before reporting something totally false, we should expect it to be the final curtain call for a network that is roughly as popular as inflation, I would be the first to admit I was wrong on all counts, and Josh Stein better be the loudest voice calling for heads to roll.

But, if Robinson is lying – and make no mistake, if those are his screen shots, then what he is doing is straight-up looking you in the eye and brazenly lying – then he belongs on the scrap heap of discarded North Carolina scumbag politicians, right next to John "don't worry, she'll be gone soon" Edwards, and I would expect Republicans to be at vanguard of putting him out to pasture while admitting they put party over principle and were ultimately wrong.

I look forward to a series of escalations and screeching from both sides over this issue before never getting resolution.