Dissecting Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s “killing” comments

Lt. Governor Mark Robinson speaks at The Lake Church in Bladen County. (Photo: Screengrab from Lake Church/ Facebook Page)

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is a proud and unapologetic provocateur. Robinson often couches statements that he knows will be viewed as controversial with a preemptive admission that he’s aware he’s about to cross a line not usually breached by high elected officials. Then, typically, he attributes the squeamishness about what he’s about to say to his lily-livered critics and plunges ahead.

This was the pattern Robinson used on June 30 at The Lake Church in Bladen County when, as NC Newsline reported on July 5 , Robinson told Sunday worshipers that “some folks need killing.”

In a diatribe that his campaign spokesperson said was meant only to be a history lesson about World War II, Robinson put it this way:

“We now find ourselves struggling with people who have evil intent.

You know, there was a time in which we used to meet evil on the battlefield. Guess what we did to it: we killed it! We didn’t quibble about it. We didn’t argue about it. We didn’t fight about it. We killed it!

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, what’d we do? We flew to Japan and we killed the Japanese army and navy. We didn’t even quibble about it. I didn’t start this fight. You did.

You wanted to be left alone. you should have left me alone. We didn’t argue and capitulate and talk about well, maybe we shouldn’t fight the Nazis that hard. No, they’re bad. Kill them!

Some liberal somewhere is gonna say that sounds awful. Too bad. Get mad at me if you want to.

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!”

Not surprisingly, Robinson was right.

“Sounds awful” is a description that a lot of people of many different political persuasions did find apt for what he said.

But of course, at the heart of the discussion regarding Robinson’s “killing” remark was the question of who it is exactly that he thinks should be killed.

If, as Robinson’s spokesperson argued in an email to Newsline, the Lt. Governor was merely conducting a retrospective on World War II, then one has to concede that the comment was – while surprisingly harsh and passionate for a politician describing a war fought 80 years ago to a Sunday church audience – not inaccurate.

After all, it’s undeniable that, ultimately, the Allied victory over Axis forces was, like all wars, about killing. A combined total of nearly 8 million members of the German and Japanese militaries died during the war – a large proportion at the hands of American armed forces. Most estimates put the total military and civilian casualties from that terrible conflict at north of 50 million.

The question that arises, however, is, if a history lesson was all he intended, why did Robinson couch the remark the way he did?

Saying people had to be killed to win World War II has never been controversial. There’s no need for passionate preaching to convince anyone – including the vast majority of American liberals – of its obvious truth. The year 2024 is hardly, as Robinson put it, the “time for someone to say it”; millions of people have already said the same thing millions of times quite calmly over the last eight decades.

But when you shout such a statement during a speech in which you are also passionately describing those who disagree with you as “wicked” and “evil,” and in which you make allusions to “communism” and “socialism” and call on present day military and law enforcement personnel (“guys in green” and “boys in blue”) to “handle” the world’s bad people, it’s foolish to think that your remarks won’t invite other very different interpretations.

One doesn’t have to look very hard in the American political environment right now to find a disturbing number of individuals who are willing to talk in apocalyptic terms about using violence, and even “war,” to address their political grievances.

Indeed, North Carolina is a state in which individuals who share Robinson’s frequently voiced views about LGBTQ+ people have made multiple threats , issued bomb threats , and possibly carried out an act of domestic terrorism in response to events involving drag performers.

And when high elected officials embrace such language and utter it passionately in a public place, it’s absurd to think it doesn’t give aid, comfort and inspiration to those with such twisted views.

In short, even if one takes the most charitable conceivable view toward what Robinson said, it’s undeniable that it was unnecessary and reckless.

And if, as seems vastly more likely, the comment was made by a politician who knew exactly what he was doing and who has quite intentionally fashioned a political career based on these kinds of provocative and attention-grabbing remarks, then “unnecessary and reckless” is a vast understatement.

The post Dissecting Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s “killing” comments appeared first on NC Newsline .