HuffPost Truncates a Quote by North Carolina Lt. Gov Mark Robinson

The GOP nominee for governor did not say he believes women shouldn’t vote.

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Mark Robinson addresses supporters during a campaign event in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, on February 17, 2024. (Photo by Madeline Gray/ Washington Post/ Getty Images)

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson won the GOP nomination for the state’s upcoming gubernatorial race on Tuesday. The next day, HuffPost published an article highlighting comments he made in 2020 at an event hosted by a Republican women’s group. In a video clip featured in the article, Robinson says, “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.” 

The quote has spread rapidly online since its publication, including in a clip reposted by North Carolina’s Democratic Party.

While Robinson—who has a history of making controversial statements—did, in fact, make these remarks, the isolated quote has been taken out of context. Here’s what he said, in full:

“This idiotic guy was on stage with Candace Owens a few days ago and asked her, ‘What America are we going back to to make America great again? The one where women couldn’t vote? Or where black people were swinging from trees?’ I would say to him if I was standing in front of him, I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote. Do you know why? Because in those days, we had people who fought for real social change, and they were called Republicans, and they are the reason why women can vote today. Those days that he talked about when black folks were swinging from trees, guess who it was out there fighting to bring that to an end, to bring Jim Crow to an end? It was Republicans. So that’s the America we want to bring back. We want to bring back the America where Republicans and principles and true ideas of freedom rule. That’s the America we want to bring back.”

Viewed in the context of his broader remarks, Robinson is not arguing that women should no longer be allowed to vote, but instead that the Republican Party should return to the days when it led the fight for social change. “That’s why I’m a Republican,” Robinson added. “I’m a Republican because of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution and the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. I’m a Republican because whenever you look at true, honest to God, social change for the better, at the top leading the charge is a Republican.” HuffPost included a longer version of the video further down in its article.

Robinson has, however, frequently made other controversial statements—and been accused of antisemitism on multiple occasions. In a 2018 Facebook post, for example, Robinson said that the Marvel film Black Panther was “only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets,” and in 2017 he wrote that “homosexuality and irresponsibility” and “Lesbianism and feminism” were being used by Satan to destroy the family.

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Martin Hernandez

    Thanks Alex. Seems most of the audience who read your fact check missed the broader point in the fact check. As Jonah G, has pointed out about young progressives who want to cosplay as the civil rights warriors of yore, this problem seems to be universally American in that even republicans like Robinson need to pretend like they’re living in a time where rights are being wrestled from our hands daily. It’s convenient for outlets like HuffPost (and whatever their RW equivalent is) to pump up these quotes, out of context, so their exuberant minions can click away at those headlines and feed their rage for the other side.

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  2. Avatar photo
    DougAz

    Offensive comments by N.C. Republican (Mark Robinson) stand out even in Trump’s party

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/03/02/mark-robinson-governor-candidate-north-carolina-offensive-comments/

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  3. Avatar photo
    DougAz

    Robinson is an utterly disgusting racist, antisemitic misogynistic low life. He's in that Trump low life orbit.

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  4. Sai Ayila

    Mark Robinson is a terrible terrible candidate. He will trump kissing Kari lake look like a respectable candidate. Whether the words are taken out of context or not doesn't matter, because he said things worse than women's right to vote, this guy also openly denied. Holocaust has taken place, also his hypocrisy on abortion. The list goes on, god save NC if he elected there. On there other hand he is going to be drag in up an down elections in that state. Trump won NC by just 1.5 points and this state is in play for dems

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  5. Nick Pellicciotto

    WOW hard hitting fact checking…not.

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  6. Jackrabbit McQuivers

    Wait he wants to go back to the days before social change, so that he can be part of the social change? That makes no sense.

    And then denounce the party that gave us LBJ and the civil rights act?

    I'm just really confused how this context makes the quote better. Less misogynistic, but more ignorant? Umm... kudos to him?

    That said, it is always important to correct a quote when it implies the wrong thing. Glad it was corrected so we know where he stands. It just doesn't benefit him

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  7. InadvertantObfuscation

    Could someone explain to me what was anti-semetic / Jew-hatred? He seemed to be accusing Hollywood of taking our money for a pointless film, but the Jewish references were for us who had been taken -- I was spoken to as if I were a Jew.
    Was this a back-handed allusion to an idea the Jews have all the money? Then I, the listener, am one with the money, no?
    Whatever was wrong with the statement was very different in character from "from the river to the sea".

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  8. Bobby D

    I’m not sure that the context helps all that much. Apparently the GOP leadership in NC wants to send a Democrat to the governor’s mansion for another 4 years.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Normb1442

    OK, it was taken out of context. This wasn't taken out of context: "Those days that he talked about when black folks were swinging from trees, guess who it was out there fighting to bring that to an end, to bring Jim Crow to an end? It was Republicans."

    No, it wasn't. It was northern Democrats and SOME northern Republicans. There were almost NO southern Republicans who opposed Jim Crow openly, and when the national Democratic Party under LBBJ began to DO SOMETHIGNG about segregation, southern Republicans eagerly swooped in to oppose them alongside the Dixiecrats. Northern Republican Senators allowed the filibuster to delay passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for months, caving in only when the brutality of state terrorism shown on TV every night became politically too hard to support. NOT ONE southern Republican voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the GOP platform for 1964 called for its repeal, and its candidate had voted against it in the Senate.
    Mr. Robinson may believe what he's saying out of ignorance, but he's flat wrong.

    If what he's trying to say is Republicans took the part of blacks during the Civil War and its immediate aftermath, THAT is correct, but he has omitted the part about how any serious support for blacks suffering from Jim Crow ended in 1876, and was never meaningfully challenged until 1960, when blacks THEMSELVES began to do so in Mr. Robinson's own North Carolina. And when they did, it was the northern Democratic Party that gave them the support that mattered.

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    1. Bobby D

      Never mind that, as a result of political realignment, the political progeny of the Republicans who advocated for such social changes are either independents or Democrats now. And the Democrats who resisted such social changes are now Republicans.

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  10. Ken Motamed

    "Viewed in the context of his broader remarks, Robinson is not arguing that women should no longer be allowed to vote, but instead that the Republican Party should return to the days when it led the fight for social change."

    The problem is that the days the Republican Party fought for social change coincided with the days women couldn't vote. But more to the point, what social changes do we need to fight for today?

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    1. Avatar photo
      DougAz

      Women's Right to Choose.

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