Republican Mark Robinson's rise in North Carolina politics has been nothing short of spectacular.

It all started in the spring of 2018 when Robinson, a Greensboro resident who at the time worked in furniture manufacturing, appeared before the city council to speak his mind on gun rights as the city considered canceling a gun show. 

During the nearly four minutes he spoke, a fired-up Robinson said he was fed-up with "law-abiding citizens" like himself being "the first ones taxed and the last ones considered" - and the first ones blamed - when it came to debates about gun rights in America after mass shootings:

“But it seems like every time we have one of these shootings nobody wants to put the blame where it goes, which is at the shooter’s feet. You want to put it at my feet. You want to turn around and restrict my right. A constitutional right that’s spelled out in black and white. You want to restrict my right to buy a firearm to protect myself from some of the very people you’re talking about in here tonight.”

“[Law-abiding gun owners] are the first ones taxed and the last ones considered,” he railed. “And the first ones punished when things like this happen. Because our rights are the ones being taken away.

[...]

“Well, I’m here to tell you tonight [taking guns away from law-abiding citizens] is not going to happen without a fight. And when I say fight, I don’t mean shots fired. I don’t mean fists thrown. I mean I’m going to come down here to this city council and raise hell just like the loonies from the left do until you listen to the majority of the people in this city. And I am the majority. The majority of the people in this city are law-abiding. And they follow the law and they want their constitutional right to bear arms."

For those who missed it or would like to watch it again, click below:

Wow! Gun owner Mark Robinson of Greensboro NC sets his city council straight after they propose stopping gun shows in the Greensboro community:

"Every time we have one of these shootings, nobody wants to put the blame where it goes, which is at the shooter's feet." 👏 pic.twitter.com/GfJ6ct2Xwa

— Trevor (@GodBlesssTexas) April 6, 2018

It didn't take long for the speech to go viral on social media, so much so that a month later Robinson, an unapologetic conservative, was speaking before an NRA audience at the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum in Dallas.

Who else was there to address the crowd? Then-President Donald Trump.

Nearly two years later, in March 2020, Robinson defeated more established GOP candidates to win the nomination for lieutenant governor. In the fall of that same year, Robinson was victorious over a well-funded Democratic opponent and North Carolina's notoriously left-leaning media machine to become the state's first black Lt. Gov., receiving even more votes than Trump, who carried North Carolina that year as well.

Here we are four years later, and Robinson, who was endorsed by Trump, is aiming to make history again this fall, easily winning the gubernatorial nomination on Super Tuesday:

Decision Desk HQ projects Mark Robinson wins the Republican primary for North Carolina's gubernatorial election.#DecisionMade: 7:58pm ET

Follow results here: https://t.co/OzIBjFSQ12 pic.twitter.com/9CAoHacEQO

— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) March 6, 2024

In the general election, he'll take on the state's current Attorney General, Josh Stein, who got 200,000 fewer votes than Robinson on Tuesday.

Already, the Democrat panic has set in, with references being made to past social media posts and statements dug up by critics that they say make Robinson a dangerous extremist.

"Mark Robinson is such an extremist that his gubernatorial primary victory deserves to be seen as a genuine scandal for the contemporary Republican Party," Steve Bennen, the show producer for MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, wrote in the aftermath of Robinson's primary victory.

The Huffington Post huffed about how the alleged "conspiracy theorist" and "Donald Trump acolyte is now likely to try to distance himself from his long history of sexist, antisemitic and otherwise offensive remarks."

And this was the headline from The Guardian: "Hitler-quoting candidate wins North Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary"

North Carolina voters, of course, will be the ones who ultimately decide Robinson's political fate. But if history is a reliable indicator, whatever happens in November, Robinson will not go down without one heckuva fight.

Flashback: Mark Robinson Triggers Democrats During House Hearing on Election Laws