Most people had never heard of Mark Robinson until 2018, when a video of him defending gun rights in a Greensboro City Council meeting went viral. That flash of fame led him to drop out of college (he graduated later), quit his job in furniture manufacturing and focus on public speaking engagements.

By 2019, he was running for lieutenant governor. He won. And just four years later, hes hoping to keep going and become North Carolinas next Republican governor in November.

Now, though its not going great.

Robinsons ascent in politics has been remarkable, even if its almost entirely due to this far-right conspiracy theorist riding on the coattails of former President Donald Trump. But he was also destined to crash, which is whats happening now. His years of publicly making sexist, racist, Islamophobic, anti-LGBTQ+ and otherwise vile comments finally caught up to him. Its one thing to fly below the radar as a lieutenant governor, but you cant escape scrutiny as a gubernatorial candidate, particularly in a swing state like North Carolina in a presidential election year.

A CNN report last week uncovered years of disturbing comments that Robinson apparently made on a porn site forum. He referred to himself as a Black Nazi. He described being sexually aroused by secretly spying on girls in showers. He called himself a perv who enjoys pornography featuring transgender people a sharp contrast to his present-day transphobic rhetoric.

Robinson has denied the report is true. Hes even vowing to sue CNN. But he has yet to show how this story, which was meticulously reported and came with receipts, is false lies, as hes claimed. The fallout since its publication has been brutal: His top campaign staff resigned en masse, GOP groups pulled ad money for his campaign and Republican politicians, once eager to support him, now want nothing to do with him.

Even Trump, who enthusiastically endorsed Robinson in March and has hailed him as Martin Luther King on steroids, is avoiding being seen with him.

The CNN report is a doozy, but it is not by any means the first sign that Robinson has said things that are unacceptable that should be unacceptable for a statewide elected official.