Top GOP Candidate For North Carolina Governor Calls Beyonce's Music 'Satanic'

It shouldn’t be controversial to call Robinson a conspiracy theorist when he’s said it himself. “Folks will get mad and say, ‘Oh you’re just a conspiracy theorist,’” he said in March. “OK, I’m going to tell you right now, conspiracy theorists are 42-0. We’re undefeated right now, folks.” That’s part of the point of a conspiracy, of course—it can never be defeated in the conspiracy theorist’s mind, because it was never rational to begin with—but 42 really could be an accurate count of the number of conspiracy theories Robinson adheres to right now.

Robinson buys into most of the really big-name conspiracy theories, like the moon landing having been faked. But he goes way past that, Bendery writes:

In lesser-noticed social media posts, Robinson has said that news coverage of police shootings is part of a media conspiracy “designed to push US towards their new world order.” He and his wife both liked a since-deleted Facebook comment that stated, “WWG1WGA are my ‘Identity’ letters,” a reference to the QAnon rallying cry “Where we go one, we go all.” In October 2018, on a day when authorities intercepted pipe bombs intended for President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CNN, Robinson suggested on Facebook that they had done it to themselves. “If you can’t beat ’em, bomb yourself,” he wrote.

Robinson’s talk of media conspiracies ventures into outright antisemitism often enough that even when it’s not explicit, it’s fair to assume antisemitism is lurking just in the background.

For instance, there are his views about the music industry, which don’t stop at just Beyoncé and Jay-Z. “We sit starry eyed watching these puppets of beelzebub, not realizing the obvious fact that the masters who pull their string HATE us, and want to see us destroyed,” Robinson wrote in 2017. “We run to the theaters to see the films produced by the sons of Satan of Hollywood to further glamorize the street ape mentality that is destroying OUR future.” That reference to “the masters who pull their strings” draws on classic antisemitic tropes even if he didn’t quite spell it out in the moment.

In 2015, he wrote, “I know this may sound paranoid and crazy, but I truly believe that the ‘judgement’ format of these ‘reality’ competition shows ( i.e. American Idol, DWTS, Chopped, etc. ) is sign of things to come in the REALITY of the New World Order.” Asked to elaborate, he added in a comment, “The format of these shows reminds me of the predetermined format of Stalin's ‘Show Trials’. Where people were lined up and judged then executed. Of course no one is being killed but all the elements are still there. Sometimes I think these shows are setting people's mind on this type of format for a more sinister reason.”

If he isn’t elected governor of North Carolina, Robinson should look for career opportunities as a conspiracy theory tester. People wanting to spread a conspiracy theory could come to him and try to persuade him. If they failed, they’d know no one would ever believe it. But the thing is, he could be elected governor of North Carolina. In 2020, he defeated state Rep. Yvonne Lewis Holley 52-48 percent in the general election for lieutenant governor—a bigger margin in the state than Donald Trump’s over President Joe Biden. There’s real reason to fear that the state ranked ninth in population could elect a governor who believes reality television is getting us ready for show trials and mass executions.