Mark Robinson and the GOP

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I don’t want to go into the details of the Mark Robinson story. If you want them, they’re there. Everywhere. And they’re…bleccch. Really gross. Really, really gross. What has emerged in recent days is an incredibly disturbing portrait of a sick man obsessed with power, at all costs.

Except. Well. We already knew that.

That’s just the lieutenant governor of North Carolina and the Republican candidate for governor preaching to a church that his political enemies are bad and that bad people should be killed. Add to that a long and disgusting career of advocating patriarchal supremacy over women, Nazi sympathies, anti-Semitic tirades, attacks on gays and transgender people, and a whole host of repugnant positions, statements and conspiracy theories.

Not surprisingly, a history of truly twisted and disturbing online posts allegedly written by Robinson has surfaced. Political insiders have been sharing rumors and stories about him for years. What has now been revealed—including graphic, sickening descriptions, a desire to own slaves, and a declaration that he himself is a Nazi—only further illuminates what we already know: Robinson is utterly unfit for office and power.

In all the controversy, something is lost. And we cannot afford to lose sight of this essential thing.

Robinson is no outsider. He is the Republican Party.

As we have seen the GOP openly embrace authoritarianism and getting stranger and strangerthe need to normalize and clean up our duopolistic system has obscured a rising horror. You don’t act like this when you’re healthy. The basis for the Republican Party and the Right Wing Party throughout history has been a deep, deep maelstrom of psychological distress that then manifests itself in behavior and through politics.

It stems from a sense of self-hatred and disgust, often the result of abuse and trauma. In religious communities, it stems from weaponized shame and pervasive pressure to conform to unrealistic standards and expectations. This ranges from sexual identity to simple and organic thoughts and desires. You are constantly reminded that not only are you miserable, but that unless that misery is eradicated, you could be subject to excommunication, punishment, and even eternal damnation and torture. These concepts are parroted within familial and communal systems, with or without the framework of religion.

Ultimately, the individual must make a choice. And that choice can be conscious or unconscious. Either the offending parts of the personality are sublimated, or the person removes themselves from the environment and risks all of the above consequences. Often, the sublimation and repression requires something very sinister and very dark. In order to avoid the pressing cognitive dissonance, the person then projects the “dark” and “evil” things about themselves onto the rest of the world, a function aided by religious and political ideologies that consistently tell them that sinister forces are everywhere and are constantly conspiring against them.

This is the right-wing ethos in a nutshell. Today’s GOP offers a compelling and unmistakable example of these concepts. How Donald Trump, a convicted felon and lifelong criminal, takes the stage and warns of “criminal hordes” invading the country to carry out unthinkable plans and crimes. How so many preachers, politicians, and government officials who traffic in QAnon/child trafficking conspiracy theories end up ensnared in scandals and investigations into their own exploitative crimes. And how a party that prides itself on standing up for “law and order” and respect for national security and law enforcement backs a violent attempt to overthrow the government carried out by rioters who attacked police, and turns a blind eye when its standard-bearer is caught keeping highly classified state secrets.

The prevailing political analysis is disturbingly shallow. We are presented with a shifting cast of characters and shifting storylines so convoluted and confusing that often all we can do is throw our hands up in the air and wonder how bad it will get. Meanwhile, what is happening is understandable and even predictable. Psychological understanding of right-wing politics and the inner workings of authoritarianism is widespread, but the results and findings are relegated to a handful of academics. There is no point in delving deeper into these things, because to understand what is happening, why it is happening, and what is at play would require a deeper reckoning with a system that functions according to such dysfunctions that not only perpetuate them but also amass power and wealth.

We live in a society and economy that profits from sociopathic and psychopathic behavior, and continues to foster abuse, distrust, and exploitation, and empower characters like Robinson as the cycle continues. And as the status quo deteriorates and, by design and necessity, becomes more authoritarian, we will see more people like Robinson and Trump and their various cohorts like Matt Gaetz. Because when a party detaches itself from the real policies or even principles it once espoused, all that remains is cruelty. But make no mistake: Even when the GOP was “normal,” which it wasn’t, its ranks were filled with hypocrites and deeply sick characters whose behavior revealed the whole game. It’s only becoming more obvious and inevitable now.

Ultimately, Robinson and Trump and others like them are the only ones available to carry out the ugly business. Because their individual pathologies make them perfect vehicles for what most would simply refuse. We know this instinctively when we see them. You cannot watch Robinson’s “sermon” above without feeling revulsion, unless of course you are subject to the same internal and unconscious drives. The same goes for Trump. To hear them, to see them, to be inundated with them, is to recognize what is happening beneath the surface, even if you may not understand it rationally or have the background or resources to name it.

Republicans in North Carolina are running away from Robinson, but that political action is rooted in a desire for continued power and profit, not in a moral or ethical concern. They knew who he was. They heard what he said, they heard the same rumors I heard, and it was fine as long as the real mess wasn’t visible. What we’re seeing with Trump, with his endless crimes, the litany of scandals, the convictions, the behavior, is a lesson in that regard. None of that matters as long as the quest for power continues.

It is telling that Robinson and Trump have been peddling these poisons for years in full view of the public and the world. When Trump sows white supremacist and patriarchal hatred, we whitewash it into something acceptable at our peril. When people tell Robinson, and he is far from alone in this, that gays and trans people are bad, that women should be subjugated, and that the principles of blatant authoritarianism are not only desirable but necessary, we cannot afford to treat this as anything other than confessions. We feel it in our guts, but a lack of acknowledgement means it will continue and get worse.

This is a time of necessary understanding. We are seeing a deep and profound illness, while many try to convince us that it is normal. Robinson will be treated as an outlier, but what has been revealed is something greater and far more important. What we are dealing with here is not just politics. Its manifestations are politics. The means by which this malady communicates and spreads itself are politics. But its origins, and the restless need to whitewash, normalize, and even encourage it, are rooted in something much, much larger. Staring at it and continually expressing surprise only ensures that it will continue to metastasize and fester.