The Republican lieutenant governor of North Carolina says that the time is now for Americans to stand up for the right to life, medical freedom, and education.

“What conservatives have said about the left over the past 50 years at this present time has been true more than any other time in history,” Mark Robinson said Thursday. “At every turn, we’ve seen abortion being championed in this nation. Now with [COVID-19], we see people being turned away for crucial medical procedures because they don’t want to relent to some type of mandate. Life means nothing to those folks on the left.”

In Robinson’s view, Americans need to fight for medical autonomy and privacy between doctor and patient. He said his job as an elected official isn’t to advise on the COVID-19 vaccine, but rather to ensure those who want it are able to receive it, and that those who do not want the vaccine aren’t forced to get it by government mandate.

“You know, COVID is the virus,” he said in a speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida. “But you know what the real virus is? The real virus is Democrats. The real virus is totalitarian, leftist thugs who have used this virus to browbeat the American people and have used it for political purposes.” 

Robinson, 53, who serves under a Democratic governor, also criticized his state’s education system, and said he’s fighting to improve public schools there. 

“We spend almost half of our state budget on education in North Carolina, and our children can’t read at a grade level,” said Robinson, who is black. “Meanwhile, pornography is in our libraries. We’re in classrooms teaching children about adult issues like transgenderism. And we’re setting black children on one side of the room and white children on the other side, and teaching them to despise each other.” 

He said that in addition to fighting on a state-by-state basis, it’s time to fight harder against the federal government.

“[President] Joe Biden is an incompetent, incontinent nitwit, who has ruined everything he has touched,” he said. “ … If there was ever a time in this country when it was time for us to stand up against the walls of the federal government, it is now.” 

Robinson said that despite the many challenges facing the public, he has faith in the American spirit to stand up and fight. He said he drew personal inspiration from his mother, who had little formal education and was widowed with five children at a young age. 

“At that point, my mother’s back was up against the wall. See, my mother could’ve laid down, become a ward of the state, went on welfare, and collected all kinds of checks and just sat there and waited for the government to take care of her. But she didn’t do that,” Robinson said. “She got up, she leaned forward, and she fought back. And that is what it’s time for Americans to do in this country.”

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