Can This Warthog Shrink His Warts?

 

People are talking about the "new Mark Robinson" who showed up in a pre-taped "response" to Governor Cooper's state-of-the-state address, using a conversational tone of voice and expressing a Rodney King-level desire to "come together" for the good of the state.

That, of course, ain't the Mark Robinson who became the most popular Republican in the state. That Mark Robinson is invited to fundamentalist churches explicitly because those folks love the yelling, the hell-fire threats, the attacks on the weakest symbols of liberalism -- homosexuals, woke women, diversity teachers, the godless transgendered. The crowds that flock to him, and simply can't wait to vote for him for governor, love the way he owns the libs by pounding them with a booming voice that entertains no self-doubt. That's what the Republican base wants and what it likes -- meanness, cruelty, the hatefulness of the hard-hearted toward all its enemies, especially the domestic ones.

But suddenly, it's as though Robinson drank undiluted red meat tenderizer before taping his official Republican response to Governor Cooper's legislative vision. WRAL noticed the transformation and aired an entire segment on Robinson's attempt to remake himself as a reasonable human being who could credibly lead North Carolina:

Can this reinvention work? Can Robinson make himself stop yelling and insulting and belittling and driving wedges? Or will the public allow him to do his pre-recorded "I'm-a-really-reasonable-guy" routine for the general public while still delivering the untenderized red meat for the church crowd?