He’s been dubbed “Martin Luther King on steroids” by former President Donald Trump.
But according to Democratic strategist James Carville, Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who soared to victory in North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, is “evil.”
As the first African American to hold his current office, Robinson has been the subject of hit pieces and harsh criticism from the left.
On Wednesday’s edition of MSNBC’s “The Beat,” host Ari Melber arranged cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes from the fiery candidate into a montage for Carville.
“He has compared gay Americans to ‘maggots,'” host Ari Melber noted. “He has quoted Hitler positively, including the idea of racial ‘pride in one’s own race.'”
Actually, Robinson posted to Facebook a “Who said it?” question to his followers. Spoiler: the answer was Hitler.
Robinson did not indicate whether he felt it was a positive or negative statement.
One clip showed Robinson saying, “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.”
The Huffington Post made a whole story out of it.
Yes, Robinson said, “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote,” but the rest of the quote explains, “because in those days we had people who fought for real social change, and they were called Republicans.”
Mike Lonergan, communications director for Robinson’s campaign, addressed the Huffington Post “partisan hit-piece” on X, calling it “a pack of lies.”
Robinson, he said, “spoke to a group of Republican women encouraging them to look to the legacy of the Republican Party leading the way in passing the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote, ending the Democrats’ racist Jim Crow laws and more.”
“Anyone spinning this any other way is just playing more Democrat word games to smear Mark Robinson instead of talking about the real issues in this election — growing our economy, strengthening schools and making streets safer.”
Here’s our full statement on the latest partisan hit-piece from HuffPost #ncpol #ncgov pic.twitter.com/fW6vVQwKdD — Mike Lonergan (@mikelonergan85) March 6, 2024
But “spin” is what Carville does best, and he outdid himself on Wednesday.
“[T]hat guy is not naive,” he told Melber. “He’s evil.”
“I mean, what he said, that’s not somebody being naive,” Carville continued. “That’s insane beyond any imagination. And we have to drive that home and drive it again and again and again, and make people– hold people accountable, you know?”
(Video: MSNBC)
To be fair, Carville has long believed most Republicans are “evil” — especially “stupid” Trump supporters.
“The problem the Republican Party has is they got really stupid people that vote in their primaries,” he said in 2022. “And when you have that, you’re going to get in – really stupid people demand to have really stupid leaders. And that’s where the Republican Party is now.”
“People that believe that the election was stolen and have a right to storm the Capitol, which is a substantial number of people in the Republican Party, are evil,” Carville stated at the time.
James Carville: ‘Majority’ of GOP voters are ‘really stupid, evil, racist, misogynist’ https://t.co/yyRCijxLGG pic.twitter.com/VXfYE6ikco — BPR (@BIZPACReview) August 18, 2022
To beat Robinson in November, Carville suggested that Democrats harras Republican voters.
“They gotta put the microphone in every Republican’s face. You know?” he told Melber “‘Would you vote for this guy? What do you have to say about it?'”
“These are some things that a nomination for a major state, a gubernatorial candidate endorsed by your presidential candidate, you back Trump,” he ranted. “You have to back people in the corner.”
“North Carolina is a populous, important state that is growing every day,” Carville said. “And I think that we can use this, we can leverage this issue to many, many bigger things. I really do.”