Daily Herald opinion: A divisive moment averted: Plans to bring inflammatory speaker to suburbs would only have hurt Illinois GOP

It is hard to wrap our heads around the self-inflicted damage certain northern Illinois Republicans inflicted on themselves and their party in recent days by inviting a misogynistic, homophobic, Holocaust-denying and Black-hating politician from North Carolina to speak at a GOP fundraiser.

If former Lake County GOP party leader Mark Shaw was trying to help former President Donald Trump win Wisconsin when he invited Mark Robinson to speak at the Tenth Congressional District Republican Organization in Kenilworth on Sept. 29, he miscalculated. With the kind of outrage now surrounding Robinson, North Carolina's Black lieutenant governor now running for governor is the kind of help Trump does not need. Neither does the rest of the Illinois GOP, which lies practically moribund, thanks largely to the divisive intolerance of people like Robinson.

If you have been following the story, you’ll know that Shaw invited Robinson to the fundraiser at a time when anybody who did even the smallest research on Robinson’s Facebook posts would be aware of the vile and toxic rhetoric spilling out of his brain. “ … this foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash,” is memorable, as is his disparagement of the Civil Rights movement, and his mocking of school shooting survivors who campaign for greater gun control. He supports full abortion bans regardless of rape or incest, admitting his now-wife aborted their child when they got pregnant before they were married. He accused Michelle Obama of being a man and Jews of financially exploiting Blacks.

Remarkably, a lot of people didn’t do the smallest research. Robinson won the GOP primary for North Carolina governor. Trump enthusiastically endorsed him and secured Robinson a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

All of this might have stayed under the general radar if CNN had not taken a close look at the Facebook posts and discovered another land mine: that years ago, Robinson apparently posted voluminously on a pornographic website called Nude Africa, writing detailed sexual fantasies (including an admission of adultery) but also calling himself a “Black Nazi”; calling Martin Luther King Jr. a “commie bastard,” and “worse than a maggot” and suggesting that slavery is not bad and that “some people need to be slaves.” In those posts, he offers antisemitic and anti-Muslim bile and embraces homophobia.

Robinson has denied he authored the porn site writings. But over the weekend his campaign manager and three other aides resigned, which is not a good sign. He was dropped from Trump’s Saturday rally in North Carolina, a crucial swing state in the November election, another bad sign. As of this writing, Trump has not rescinded his endorsement of Robinson but seems to be keeping his distance.

According to the Tenth GOP website, Robinson dropped out of the Sept. 29 event over the weekend. Was it his idea or did the Illinois GOP urge him to reconsider? We don’t know. But even before the CNN report, asking Robinson to keynote a GOP fundraiser in the suburbs was never a good idea.

Yes, you can argue that believing in free speech means allowing a forum for people whose ideas you find abhorrent. That’s true, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t mean that political parties have to accept any and every potential political speaker. Nor is Mark Robinson the image the Illinois GOP needs to be projecting as it struggles to become relevant again in state politics.

It's heartening that the rest of the Lake County and North Shore GOP leadership expressed dismay about the invitation to Robinson from the beginning. Northfield Township GOP Chair T.J. Brown quickly called for the fundraiser to be canceled, saying Robinson’s purported remarks were “appalling.”

“Mr. Shaw and his organization represent no one but themselves,” Lake County Republican Party Chairman Keith Brin told our Russell Lissau.

Kudos to them, and the vast majority of suburban Republicans who find the rhetoric hateful and disgusting. It's time to put Mr. Shaw and his ilk out to pasture.