GOP governor candidate says Beyoncé is a “puppet of Beelzebub” & her music is “satanic chants”

North Carolina’s virulently anti-LGBTQ+ Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) has a long history of spouting unhinged conspiracy theories on social media, including that the entertainment industry is controlled by “demons” and that none other than Beyoncé herself is “satanic.”

Robinson, who is currently the frontrunner for North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial nomination, has made his anti-LGBTQ+ and conspiratorial views abundantly clear. As lieutenant governor, he formed a task force to investigate the supposed “indoctrination” of children in North Carolina’s public schools, claiming that teachers were “abusing” children by allowing them access to books about transgender characters. During a June 2021 address, he described “transgenderism” and homosexuality as “filth.” The following August, he made wildly offensive statements about trans people, calling the movement for transgender rights “demonic” and “full of the spirit of Antichrist.” In a November 2021 speech, he compared gay people to cow excrement and asserted that heterosexuals are “superior” to queer people. More recently in March, he said that God created him to battle against LGBTQ+ rights, and in May he falsely claimed that “clinics” are performing “transgender surgery” on 5-year-olds.

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The claim is just the latest in Mark Robinson’s long history of ignorant, unapologetically anti-LGBTQ+ statements.

On Monday, Huff Post reported on more of Robinson’s lesser-known conspiratorial views concerning the entertainment industry. The outlet resurfaced Facebook posts from 2017 in which Robinson wrote that it was “shameful” that the “satanic purveyors” of hip-hop and rap music “have become ‘heroes’ in the eyes of so many.” In another post, he described hip-hop acts NWA, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, and Jay-Z as “satanic minions.”

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“We sit starry eyed watching these puppets of beelzebub, not realizing the obvious fact that the masters who pull their string HATE us, and want to see us destroyed. We run to the theaters to see the films produced by the sons of Satan of Hollywood to further glamorize the street ape mentality that is destroying OUR future,” Robinson wrote.

In 2019, Robinson posted a photo of himself behind a folding table with the words “Beyoncé’s songs sound like Satanic chants” superimposed in front of it. “Her songs sound like they say stuff like ‘satan laughs as you rot in hell’ if play them backwards. SUPER WEIRD!!!!!” he wrote in the caption.

Huff Post also cited multiple posts in which Robinson pushed the “New World Order” conspiracy theory, among other truly outlandish and disturbing views.

Robinson’s incendiary and false claims go well beyond his apparent hatred for the LGBTQ+ community and musicians. He has stated his belief in the conspiracy theory that a cabal of globalists created COVID-19 to try to ruin Donald Trump’s re-election, and in July incorrectly described the scientific consensus around climate change as being “based on pseudoscience, junk science.”

In May, CNN reported on Robinson’s social media posts attacking the teens who survived the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In a comment on one 2018 Facebook post, Robinson agreed with a commenter who described Parkland survivor David Hogg as a “paid actor.”

According to Huff Post, many North Carolina political experts predict that Robinson will win his party’s nomination to unseat Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who is term-limited and cannot seek reelection in 2024. But at least one said that Robinson’s unhinged and extreme beliefs could be a liability with voters.

“We have seen ever since the elevation of Trump, Republican primary voters, again and again, time and time and time again, choosing the candidate who makes an awful general election candidate in a purple state,” said Steven Greene, a political science professor at North Carolina State University. “My presumption is Mark Robinson will fall right into this pattern.”