MAGA is poised to take over N. Carolina

The slate of MAGA Republicans that will be on North Carolina’s ballot in November has the potential to be disastrous for the state’s economic interests and its business leaders know it. They should use their considerable influence and act now if they want to stop it from happening.

From the top of the ticket, where Republican primary voters picked an antisemitic, election-denying, misogynist and transphobic candidate for governor to selecting a home-schooling mom with no education experience for state superintendent, the choices are so concerning that business leaders took the unprecedented step of sounding the alarm.

“Even with our foreshadowing, Tuesday’s primary election results were a startling warning of the looming threats to North Carolina’s business climate,” the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce wrote in a blistering post-mortem posted on its website.

Perhaps most troubling for the fast-growing state, which CNBC ranked No. 1 for business two years in a row, is the nomination of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson for the top job. Robinson, an acolyte of former President Donald Trump (who called him “Martin Luther King on steroids”), regularly disparages the LGBTQ community and believes a pregnant woman’s body “is not her body anymore.” He’s made hateful comments about school shooting victims, Jewish people and also normalizes Hitler.

If elected, Robinson would be the state’s first Black governor but instead of breaking barriers, he is breaking the bounds of decency and humanity. He’s an extremist, even by MAGA standards.

The state has some recent experience with what happens when intolerance is written into law.

If the Chamber and its allies are truly worried about the rightward shift of the state, they should publicly reject MAGA’s attempts to roll back progress and get behind moderate Democrat and Republican candidates.

Business and economic development officials need look no further than Robinson’s public statements and social media to see the kind of welcome message that would greet companies and visitors looking to come to North Carolina. Some of the most vile and incendiary were written before he became a candidate in 2020 but can still be found on his Facebook page. In one he says “feminism was planted in the ‘Garden,’ watered by the devil.” He calls breastfeeding moms “shameless attention hogs” and former First Lady Michelle Obama a man. In one post about the comic book movie Black Panther, he both demeans Black people and makes anti-Semitic comments about Hollywood. And he has falsely argued that gun-control measures allowed the Nazis to carry out the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Hate like that is durable. It seeps into the political zeitgeist of a state. No matter how hard Robinson tries — and he has tried to defend most of his statements by blaming the media and suggesting people have taken his words out of context — these comments are branded into our memories.

The Chamber of Commerce missive singled out the “populist wing of the Republican Party,” and while it made no specific mention of Robinson or Trump, it called out the MAGA movement primary winners, describing them as “previously unknown candidates [who] defeated sitting legislators and elected officials with stronger qualifications,” who don’t “share our vision for North Carolina.”

“The grassroots support of these far-right candidates is powerful enough to get them through primaries. But it remains unclear if they can also win the general election,” observed Kirk O’Steen, political director of the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce.

If the Chamber believes MAGA extremism is bad for business, it should publicly declare that Robinson’s offensive, dehumanizing rhetoric has no place in a state that has earned its rightful place on the global stage as a leader in commerce and education. It should promote and support candidates who are better alternatives.

The state’s Republican business leaders are going to have to pick a side sooner or later. There is plenty of information about the damage Robinson and the rest of the ticket can do. It’s time for them to get off the fence and make sure they don’t get the chance.