WILMINGTON, N.C. \u2014 The scandal engulfing Mark Robinson\u2019s campaign for North Carolina governor seems career-ending to many in politics. At Donald Trump\u2019s rally here this weekend, however, plenty of people weren\u2019t bothered.<\/p>\n
So what if Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, is linked to a porn site user who once argued for the reinstatement of slavery, detailed an affair with his wife\u2019s sister, called himself a \u201cblack NAZI\u201d and praised Adolf Hitler\u2019s book \u201cMein Kampf\u201d as \u201ca good read\u201d?<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t put much credence in it,\u201d Bob Judson, a 70-year-old unaffiliated voter, said of the allegations against Robinson. \u201cWe\u2019ve all done things in our past that we\u2019re sorry for. Some of the things are crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean,\u201d he added, \u201cif we just went on that, we wouldn\u2019t be here for Trump, would we?\u201d<\/p>\n
Robinson\u2019s contest has become a remarkable test case of voters and GOP leaders\u2019 tolerance for disturbing allegations against candidates in the Trump era \u2014 when news is deeply distrusted, scandals carry less weight and no offense seems to be enough to rattle Trump\u2019s base.<\/p>\n
Still, the accusations about Robinson are damaging enough that Trump steered clear of the candidate at his Wilmington, N.C., rally on Saturday, making no mention of his longtime ally days after CNN reported that Robinson made shocking comments on a porn forum more than a decade ago. Some Republican officials, such as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), have said the reporting raises serious concerns if true.<\/p>\n
The porn site user matches Robinson\u2019s username on public accounts, lists his name as \u201cmark robinson,\u201d shares the candidate\u2019s biographical details and even uses some of the same distinctive phrases.<\/p>\n
But Robinson, the lieutenant governor of North Carolina, has responded with Trump-like defiance, denying any involvement and railing against \u201csalacious tabloid lies.\u201d The North Carolina GOP followed suit, issuing a statement of support and suggesting the political left is \u201ctrying to demonize [Robinson] via personal attacks.\u201d Trump has not denounced Robinson or the comments attributed to him, and the general strategy at Trump\u2019s rally seemed to be to ignore the issue.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Sen. JD Vance, Trump\u2019s running mate, dodged answering an NBC reporter on whether he believed Robinson\u2019s claim that the offensive posts weren\u2019t his.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t not believe him, I don\u2019t believe him \u2014 I just think you have to let these things play out sometimes in the court of public opinion,\u201d Vance responded.<\/p>\n
Dan Bishop, the Republican nominee for North Carolina attorney general, was the outlier. He spent much of his rally speech denouncing \u201cwhite supremacist Democrats\u201d from the 1890s before blaming Democrats for the Robinson drama and suggesting, inaccurately, that hacking was required to obtain the porn site posts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week in North Carolina, Democrats suddenly abandoned their aversion to hack and dump, rolled out a meticulously timed and coordinated character assassination, and then moved immediately to smear by association,\u201d Bishop said. \u201cTheir aim, they say, is to disgrace not just one but all Republican candidates, in the name of decency, they say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republicans widely expect Robinson to lose in November. He trails his Democratic opponent Josh Stein significantly, and a long record of offensive comments and hard-line stances had already alienated moderate voters.<\/p>\n
Trump rallygoer Connie Wittmer said she was willing to look past Robinson\u2019s past controversies \u2014 like his comment that women get abortions because they couldn\u2019t keep their \u201cskirt down\u201d \u2014 but hesitated when a reporter described the porn site posts. \u201cThat disturbs me,\u201d she said. She would have to think about her vote.<\/p>\n
Yet the range of reactions to the past week\u2019s bombshells reflect the difficulty of piercing partisan loyalty \u2014 and echo years of dismissive responses to controversies around Trump, who won in 2016 despite a recording in which he bragged that he could grab women by their genitals.<\/p>\n
Kirk Giles, 50, downplayed the allegations against Robinson as normal male behavior.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not a man alive that\u2019s never looked at porn or did something stupid on porn because we\u2019re men,\u201d he said at the Wilmington rally. \u201cThat\u2019s what men do.\u201d Beside him, his friend Don Bussey said he was still voting for Robinson, too.<\/p>\n
A reporter suggested that most men on porn sites don\u2019t praise \u201cMein Kampf.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of men that say some stupid stuff on those porn sites,\u201d Giles said. \u201cThe thing is, you say some stupid stuff just to get attention. People strive for attention. There\u2019s attention-seekers out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others cast doubt on the reporting about Robinson, bolstered by years of Trump and other Republicans decrying \u201cfake news.\u201d Allen Cannon, 70, said he doesn\u2019t trust CNN and noted, \u201cIt was 10 years ago.\u201d His wife, 69-year-old Rose Cannon, thought of all the allegations against Trump they believed were unfair.<\/p>\n
There was E. Jean Carroll\u2019s allegation that Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store in the 1990s; Trump was found liable for sexual abuse last year in civil court and ordered to pay more than $80 million in damages. \u201cAnd then all these charges,\u201d Rose Cannon said. \u201cIt\u2019s just, I don\u2019t believe all that. I think all that is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I hear him talk \u2026 he\u2019s a very positive, strong man,\u201d she said of Robinson. \u201cNow that this has happened, I don\u2019t know. We\u2019ll hear through it, and see what we think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of Robinson\u2019s inflammatory comments have been in public view for a long time. Before last week\u2019s revelations, \u201cMark Robinson was unfit and unqualified to be the governor of North Carolina,\u201d argued Stein, his Democratic opponent and the state\u2019s attorney general, in an interview. The CNN report \u201csimply underlined and put an exclamation point behind that sentence, which we already knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some Republicans challenged Robinson in the primary, arguing that his baggage made him unelectable. They highlighted Robinson\u2019s comments at a church that \u201cwe are called to be led by men\u201d not women, and his screed that the movie \u201cBlack Panther\u201d was \u201ccreated by an agnostic Jew\u201d to \u201cpull the shekels\u201d from Black people\u2019s pockets.<\/p>\n
But many GOP voters loved what they called Robinson\u2019s brashness and brushed the criticisms aside. Trump signaled his support for Robinson early in the race, and ultimately endorsed him.<\/p>\n
Now, Robinson\u2019s critics say there\u2019s reason to be cynical about the impact of even the most outrageous stories.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this day and age, you\u2019re kind of like, \u2018Oh, a terrible news story?\u2019\u201d said Rich Smith, a 34-year-old Democrat from Wilmington. \u201cThey\u2019ll just says it\u2019s fake news, and move on from there. And nothing will change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
WILMINGTON, N.C. \u2014 The scandal engulfing Mark Robinson\u2019s campaign for North Carolina governor seems career-ending to many in politics. At Donald Trump\u2019s rally here this weekend, however, plenty of people weren\u2019t bothered. So what if Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, is linked to a porn site user who once argued for the reinstatement of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}