'Few have been spared' Republican's 'righteous wrath': Journalist

North Carolina Republican gubernatorial Mark Robinson, journalist Billy Ball writes in a Monday MSNBC op-ed "has built his brand on judging, more than any politician I’ve seen in my two decades covering politics in" the state.

"Women, liberals, public school teachers, atheists, LGBTQ+ people, Jewish people, poor people — few have been spared Robinson’s righteous wrath," the columnist writes.

Because of Donald Trump-backed candidate's attacks, "Republicans assumed the worst of their own base, of people of faith, of North Carolinians — that they are cruel and stupid people who will reward the same in their political candidates," and Ball asserts that's "an offensive miscalculation."

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Pointing to a report published by a state online news outlet called The Assembly last week, Ball notes "that in the 1990s and early 2000s, before Robinson was running for any offices, he would visit adult video stores in his hometown as often as five times a week."

He writes:

According to the report — which Robinson’s campaign denied, calling the reporters 'degenerates' — he would bring in pizza from the Papa John’s restaurant he worked at and 'preview' pornography in a booth inside the store. Multiple employees said he was a memorable customer. He was gregarious and funny, they said, albeit homophobic, occasionally cracking jokes at the expense of the store’s gay clientele.

"Voters will forgive bad policies, dumb statements, even crimes, but they rarely forgive humiliation," Ball emphasizes. "They won’t see the big, strong MAGA superhero Robinson says he is. They’ll see a gay-hating man taking a pizza into a private booth in a windowless adult video store to watch lesbian porn."

Ball notes, "In politics, there’s the person politicians say they are, the person people perceive them to be, and the person they really are. You hope there’s not much of a gap between them, but with Robinson — this 'born again' Christian who, according to his memoir, found religion in the 1980s — it’s a Grand Canyon-sized chasm."

Ball's full op-ed is available at this link.