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Best of Right Wing Watch - 5/26/23
Our Right Wing Watch team at People For the American Way works hard to document, expose, and disrupt right-wing extremism in America.
Here are our top five posts from the past week. Be sure to also scroll down for another subscriber-exclusive piece this week!
Click on the images or headlines for the articles.
12 Reasons Donald Trump’s Pledge to Hire Michael Flynn is a Five-Alarm Threat to Democracy
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Subscriber Exclusive:
Right Wing Watch Impact: Exposing Mark Robinson’s Extremism
by Kyle Mantyla
When a little-known white nationalist leader had dinner with former President Donald Trump in late 2022, mainstream media turned to Right Wing Watch, which had documented Nick Fuentes’s racism, antisemitism, and Christian nationalism for years, creating a valuable archive of credible information for journalists. In Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC coverage of Trump’s dinner with Fuentes, she praised Right Wing Watch as “a fire alarm system for the whole country” and a “great public service” provided by People For the American Way.
Maddow’s team and other journalists have similarly turned to Right Wing Watch for documentation of the stunning extremism of North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who won his 2020 primary on the basis of a viral pro-gun video and who is now running for governor with the help of an extremist Christian nationalist political operative.
In 2018, Mark Robinson was a furniture factory worker in North Carolina. In the wake of the mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida in February of that year, there was talk of canceling a planned gun show in Greensboro, which promoted Robinson to deliver an address to the Greensboro City Council that went viral.
By 2020, Robinson had managed to parlay the fame generated by that one video into a political career, victory with less than one-third of the vote in a crowded GOP primary, and election as lieutenant governor of the state of North Carolina.
Largely unknown outside of North Carolina, Robinson came to the attention of Right Wing Watch when he spoke at the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalition’s “Salt & Light Conference" in September 2021. The speech Robinson delivered was unlike anything we had ever heard from an elected official. An unabashed Christian nationalist, Robinson declared that anyone who didn't agree that this is a Christian nation should leave the country, and he advocated for using the public schools to preach the Christian gospel.
Our subsequent coverage of Robinson put him on the national media’s radar. In October, RWW posted a clip of Robinson ranting that he didn't want schools teaching students about "transgenderism, homosexuality, [or] any of that filth" that generated national news and set off a firestorm. In the wake of the controversy, Robinson repeatedly attacked RWW by name, but we continued to doggedly cover his radical views and bigoted statements.
Throughout 2022, Robinson worked closely with fellow Christian Nationalist political operative David Lane to build a “vote delivery machine” in North Carolina that would ensure that their shared Christian nationalist values “reign supreme” throughout the state. And thanks to millions of dollars in right-wing funding, their effort was a rousing success.
Our coverage of Robinson took on even more importance in early 2023 when Robinson announced that he was running to be elected governor of North Carolina. It is not hard to imagine that if he is successful, Robinson will be touted as a candidate for national office. Robinson is now attempting to tone down his rhetoric amid concerns that his extremism—much of which was originally documented by RWW—could prove to be politically costly. But Right Wing Watch’s reporting greatly complicates Robinson's current efforts to moderate his public persona to help him win a general election.
Robinson's radicalism is already generating opposition within North Carolina. It is largely due to the work of RWW that Robinson's extremist views have been exposed, publicized, and preserved; that evidence will almost certainly play a significant role in efforts to prevent him from becoming the next governor of North Carolina.
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