The moral disintegration of the GOP
Published October 10, 2024
The Mark Robinson affair has crystallized much of the ugliness that has been brewing for many years inside North Carolina's Republican Party. Robinson’s personal depravity is exceptional, even by the standards of MAGA. But despite years of accumulating evidence that this man had no business being governor, most North Carolina Republicans rallied around him as their party leader and promoted his candidacy until a week ago. The most vivid exemplar of this cynicism is Senator Phil Berger.
Berger came out early with an endorsement of Robinson, saying, with laughable insincerity, that the man who denied the Holocaust had “a good head on his shoulders.” Reporters had already discovered that Robinson thought “a Satanic Jew” produced the film Black Panther and that the erstwhile XXX-moviegoer had called Michelle Obama a “man” and mused that the world may have been run by an all-powerful race of lizard people. Any informed citizen—let alone the powerful boss of the state’s leading branch of government—could easily have seen that Robinson was a wildly irrational person with an erratic history and extremist views. Yet Berger, believing that Robinson would siphon off Black votes from Democrat Josh Stein, abjured any sense of integrity to endorse the far-right conspiracy loon from Greensboro. After all, “he has a good head on his shoulders.”
It nearly goes without saying that Berger did not believe what he was saying about Robinson. In fact, this truth is demonstrable. Berger spent much of the last legislative session stripping the few remaining powers from our state’s governorship, ostensibly to flaunt his party’s autocratic thuggery but in reality to address a sub rosa concern about Mark Robinson. Speculation holds that Berger removed so many powers from the executive branch as a precaution in the event that Robinson were to be elected governor and use the powers of his office destructively. In effect, Berger was concerned that Robinson might (let’s say) appoint Laura Loomer to the Community College Board and wanted to preempt this disaster by depriving Big Mark of the keys to the liquor cabinet. Berger was hedging against the possibility that Robinson would destroy the state.
Phil Berger is said to be a serious man, deeply committed to rewriting the social contract to excise any commitment to caring for the poor or softening the nasty edges of free-market capitalism. He has pursued this vision with singular effectiveness. But a key component of his approach has always been to indulge the ugliness that suffuses his political base. He terrorized LGBTQ people with the globally infamous “bathroom bill” in a failed attempt to get his compliant governor, Pat McCrory, reelected in 2016. Two years later, facing a Democratic landslide, he manipulated the poorly educated white men in his base by placing a constitutional amendment on the ballot protecting the right to “hunt and fish.” Berger’s appalling Robinson endorsement was his most irresponsible effort yet to weaponize right-wing ignorance in the service of an agenda inspired by obscure right-wing ideologues.
The idealistic cynic. For 13 years, Phil Berger has paid the debt, one piece of silver after another, accrued in his devil’s bargain with the bigoted Right. He knew fully well that Mark Robinson was unfit to be governor and took action to blunt the damage he knew would likely result if Nude Africa’s biggest fan were to move into the mansion on Blount Street. Yet he endorsed the man. Berger believed that Robinson would sign the tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks that motivated our distinguished President Pro Tem to enter politics many decades ago. The tax cuts may yet be forthcoming. But I assume the man most likely to be our next governor, Josh Stein of Chapel Hill, will veto every single one of them.
Berger came out early with an endorsement of Robinson, saying, with laughable insincerity, that the man who denied the Holocaust had “a good head on his shoulders.” Reporters had already discovered that Robinson thought “a Satanic Jew” produced the film Black Panther and that the erstwhile XXX-moviegoer had called Michelle Obama a “man” and mused that the world may have been run by an all-powerful race of lizard people. Any informed citizen—let alone the powerful boss of the state’s leading branch of government—could easily have seen that Robinson was a wildly irrational person with an erratic history and extremist views. Yet Berger, believing that Robinson would siphon off Black votes from Democrat Josh Stein, abjured any sense of integrity to endorse the far-right conspiracy loon from Greensboro. After all, “he has a good head on his shoulders.”
It nearly goes without saying that Berger did not believe what he was saying about Robinson. In fact, this truth is demonstrable. Berger spent much of the last legislative session stripping the few remaining powers from our state’s governorship, ostensibly to flaunt his party’s autocratic thuggery but in reality to address a sub rosa concern about Mark Robinson. Speculation holds that Berger removed so many powers from the executive branch as a precaution in the event that Robinson were to be elected governor and use the powers of his office destructively. In effect, Berger was concerned that Robinson might (let’s say) appoint Laura Loomer to the Community College Board and wanted to preempt this disaster by depriving Big Mark of the keys to the liquor cabinet. Berger was hedging against the possibility that Robinson would destroy the state.
Phil Berger is said to be a serious man, deeply committed to rewriting the social contract to excise any commitment to caring for the poor or softening the nasty edges of free-market capitalism. He has pursued this vision with singular effectiveness. But a key component of his approach has always been to indulge the ugliness that suffuses his political base. He terrorized LGBTQ people with the globally infamous “bathroom bill” in a failed attempt to get his compliant governor, Pat McCrory, reelected in 2016. Two years later, facing a Democratic landslide, he manipulated the poorly educated white men in his base by placing a constitutional amendment on the ballot protecting the right to “hunt and fish.” Berger’s appalling Robinson endorsement was his most irresponsible effort yet to weaponize right-wing ignorance in the service of an agenda inspired by obscure right-wing ideologues.
The idealistic cynic. For 13 years, Phil Berger has paid the debt, one piece of silver after another, accrued in his devil’s bargain with the bigoted Right. He knew fully well that Mark Robinson was unfit to be governor and took action to blunt the damage he knew would likely result if Nude Africa’s biggest fan were to move into the mansion on Blount Street. Yet he endorsed the man. Berger believed that Robinson would sign the tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks that motivated our distinguished President Pro Tem to enter politics many decades ago. The tax cuts may yet be forthcoming. But I assume the man most likely to be our next governor, Josh Stein of Chapel Hill, will veto every single one of them.
Alexander H. Jones is a Policy Analyst with Carolina Forward. He lives in Carrboro. Have feedback? Reach him at alex@carolinaforward.org.
