Mark Robinson, the North Carolina GOP nominee for governor, is off the rails even by MAGA standards

The Republican Party under Donald Trump has habitually elevated extreme right-wing candidates who can’t find enough support outside of hardcore partisans to win elections. But Mark Robinson, who won the GOP nomination for governor of North Carolina Tuesday night, is a special case even by the modern GOP’s standards.

Robinson, North Carolina’s current lieutenant governor, has hurled hateful remarks at everyone from Michelle Obama to the survivors of the Parkland school shooting. He’s called the LGBTQ community “filth.” He threatened to use his AR-15 against the government if it “gets too big for its britches,” and he wants to outlaw all abortions as well as return to a time when women couldn’t vote. He’s also ridiculed the Me Too movement, women generally, and climate change.

It seems Robinson is willing to entertain all manner of conspiracy theories, too. He’s a Holocaust denier and has a history of antisemitic remarks. He’s suggested that the 1969 moon landing might have been fake, that 9/11 was an “inside job,” that the music industry is run by Satan, and that billionaire Democratic donor George Soros orchestrated the Boko Haram kidnappings of school girls in 2014.