In April 2018, a furniture worker in Greensboro, North Carolina, spoke at a meeting of the City Council to oppose an effort to cancel a gun show and defending the right to bear arms. A video of his four-minute unscripted speech went viral, garnering millions of views and exciting Second Amendment activists across the country. Less than two years later, that factory worker, Mark Robinson, won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of North Carolina and went on to become the first African American to hold the office. Now, he’s the GOP nominee for governor of a state with more than 10 million people and a $30 billion budget.
Robinson is a product of the internet age, turning online celebrity into a political career. And his success has made him the vanguard of a new type of Republican candidate, one for whom political and professional success are not assets, but liabilities.
Robinson was singularly unaccomplished before running for office.
There’s no evidence Robinson harbored political ambitions before he made his remarks to the Greensboro City Council. Though he held strong views, he was not active in Republican politics or the gun rights movement. He didn’t even own a gun. But his ability to clearly articulate the views of millions of conservative gun owners led to a new vocation. He quit his job at the furniture factory and hit the conservative speakers’ circuit, headlining events for groups like the National Rifle Association.
Like Donald Trump, Robinson’s fans see him as a fighter, standing up for average citizens against the “woke” agenda of social justice warriors. He’s tapped into the same resentment of people who feel left behind by a rapidly changing economy and society that fueled Trump’s rise to the presidency. As he told the Greensboro City Council, “The law-abiding citizens of this community, and many other communities around this country, we’re the first ones taxed and the last ones considered and the first ones…
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