OPINION: Trump backed him. A porn site doomed him. Robinson is done.

Republican Mark Robinson is finished as a candidate for North Carolina governor. I know it, and you know it.
He can stay in the race through Nov. 5 if he wants – it’s a free country. People can even still donate money to him if they are the type who get their kicks throwing good money after bad. I say, “If you wanna crown him, crown his a–,” in the immortal words of the late, great coach Dennis Green.
But Robinson’s done. 
It was the porno site what got him. 
Robinson is MAGA to his bones, and former President Donald Trump heartily endorsed him. The Republican nominee for president said Robinson was “better” than Martin Luther King Jr., was in fact “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
Our bellicose and controversial lieutenant governor in July found himself on stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. There, he declared “the road to the White House runs directly through North Carolina.”  
Many Republicans in our state and across the United States are at this hour wishing he’s wrong about that, because Robinson has made that road really rocky for the GOP. 
CNN reported multiple comments Robinson made years ago on a pornographic website named Nude Africa, where he went by “minisoldr,” a screen name he used all over the internet.
He called himself a “black NAZI,” CNN reported. He said that slavery was “not bad,” and that “some people need to be slaves.” He said he would certainly buy some slaves himself. 
He said when he was 14, he peeped at women in showers at a public gym. “Ahh memories!” he wrote.
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Calling himself a “perv,” he said he enjoyed transgender pornography. As for that, his tastes are his tastes. But this is also the same dude who as a politician has derided transgender Americans and the LGBTQ+ community.
Robinson helpfully created a profile on Nude Africa using his full name “as well as an email address he used on numerous websites across the internet for decades,” according to CNN. The gubernatorial candidate has denied he made the comments, but no one believes him.
Robinson has built his reputation on attacking a lot of people, especially those on the left. In a time with heightened concerns about political violence, Robinson told a church congregation in July that “some folks need killing.” 
He has called homosexuality and transgenderism “filth” from another church pulpit and said, “And if you don’t like that I called it filth, come see me, and I’ll explain it to you.” 
Will he now?
The uncomfortable part in a story with so many uncomfortable parts, is that Republicans elevate Black candidates like Robinson too soon, because the overwhelmingly white party is desperate to diversify its ranks in a diverse country.
They make it tough on themselves with overreliance on raw, racist politics – like for instance when Trump questioned his opponent Kamala Harris’ ethnicity or when he and his vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, lied about Haitians in Ohio stealing and eating pets.
Take Herschel Walker for example – please! (Georgia Republicans would now say.)
Walker was a University of Georgia football star, who, despite being wholly unqualified and wholly unvetted, made a ridiculous and failed run for the U.S. Senate in 2022 against the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent. Warnock happens to be Black, so is Walker. So the reasoning went, well you know how the reasoning went. 
But even Walker’s own son – a conservative – objected to his dad’s campaign, knowing his dad’s past, which included affairs and disturbing incidents of violence. 
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As for Robinson, he was already trailing North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein in the governor’s race by an average of more than 9 points when the latest scandal broke.
His campaign has been rocked not only by his internet activities but also by his wife’s alleged financial shenanigans at a nonprofit she ran. 
Reports on Thursday said Trump’s people have pressed for Robinson to drop out of the race, fearing he’ll derail their all-important bid to win North Carolina. Republicans across the state were scrubbing their social media timelines of pictures featuring themselves posing with Robinson. They include Luke Farley, a state labor commissioner candidate running against Democrat Braxton Winston II; Laurie Buckhout, running for U.S. Congress against Don Davis in North Carolina’s First District; and even the Republican student group at UNC-Chapel Hill. 
Robinson has blamed Stein for the CNN story, but other election watchers think the likelier culprit is Republicans who wanted to force him out of the race before a midnight deadline for having his name removed from the ballot. Robinson, doing damage control on CNN, remained adamant he would stay in. The deadline passed.
The state Republican Party is standing firm with their guy, releasing a statement that said … I mean, who cares what it said? Are you kidding me?
(Hey, crown his a–, GOP.)
For the rest of us normal folk, I’ll paraphrase another part of coach Green’s epic rant: Mark Robinson was who we all thought he was.
Opinion editor Myron B. Pitts can be reached at [email protected]. This column originally appeared in the Fayetteville Observer.