North Carolina’s radical Christian nationalist Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson spoke at the Republican Party of Rockingham County’s Regan-Helms dinner Saturday night, where he declared that Christians and conservatives must get more “warlike” in order to defeat “the enemies of freedom” who are trying to destroy the nation.
“Freedom, equality, courage; that’s what this nation was built on,” Robinson said. “And our enemies share a whole different platform. They share a platform of tyranny, poverty, suffering. That’s what they intend on bringing us so that they can stay in power and they can stay in control. Folks, these people are the enemies of freedom. They’re the enemy. They’re your enemies. And all those politicians out there that may be listening to me—especially on the state and federal level—stop trying to get along with people who hate you. The only thing they want from you is for you to disappear. They don’t want to work with you. They want to work with you long enough for you to turn your back so they can cut your throats. It is time for us to get as bold and unafraid and warlike in spreading the truth in this nation as these people have been in spreading the lies that are currently destroying it. And if we’re not ready to do that, if you’re not ready to do that, then you’re not ready for this fight, folks. And that’s what this is. This is a fight to save this nation.”
Robinson then misrepresented a Biden administration proposal aimed at fighting tax fraud that would have required financial institutions to report data to the IRS on every account that had more than $600 in annual transactions. The proposal has been withdrawn, but that didn’t stop Robinson from falsely claiming that the Biden administration wanted to start tracking how people were spending their money, suggesting that doing so would lead to anti-government violence.
“The Biden administration said they want to ask me what I did with every $600 that I spent,” he said. “They said they’re going to hire all these IRS agents to come out and find out what you’re doing with your money. … There’s an old song called ‘Rocky Top.’ You know that song ‘Rocky Top’? You know, back in the old days, they used to call the IRS man, used to call him ‘the revenuer man.’ There’s a line in that song goes like this: ‘Once two strangers climbed ol’ Rocky Top, looking for moonshine still. Strangers ain’t come down from Rocky Top. Reckon they never will.’ Somebody might want to read that line to them up there in Washington D.C., cause some folks in this country ain’t friendly like I am and they ain’t going to take too kindly to you coming, sniffing around, asking them what they’ve been doing with their hard-earned money.”
“Come and ask me what I did with my $600,” Robinson added. “Please come ask me. You can stand in my door, ‘What did you do with that $600?’ I bought ammo. And last week I bought ammo. And the week before that, I bought ammo. … Would you like to see some of my ammo, revenuer man?”
Robinson insisted that while his comment was made in jest and that he doesn’t want to see violence, “I need to put these folks on notice about who it is they’re messing with.”
