Revenant

A revenant is a visible ghost or reanimated corpse of something formerly living, usually a person. In this case, we maintain the revenant is the Republican Party of Arkansas (RPA) that formerly was the conservative political party in Arkansas and is now just a name. Maybe RPA should stand for Revenant Party of Arkansas?

Quite the indictment. Do you believe we can prove what we say? Well, we’re about to show you.

RPA spent 150 years in the back seat of Arkansas politics, following way behind the Democratic party. All that ended in 2010 when RPA swindled the TEA Party into supporting it with promises of the type of government contained in the Constitution. So the TEA Party worked, contributed, made phone calls, wore out the Republican walk lists, and basically provided all the money and muscle needed to put RPA over the top.

At the same time, national campaigns recruited TEA Party members to help with election work in other states. A large contingent of TEA Party members from Arkansas went to Las Vegas to assist the campaign against Harry Reid. We were all over the place working for Republicans.

And without fail, all the Republican organizations we worked for forgot who we were once the election was done.

It seems the Constitutional government we worked for was not the government the Republicans were working for. To our eyes, the Republicans were all about working for the same government the Democrats had, just with them – the Republicans – in charge and getting all the lagniappes. What RPA was working for was a totally red state – no Democrats in any office of any import, no arguments, differing opinions, and certainly no thought of a Constitutional Republic when they were finally getting the power it seems all politicians lust after. Access to donors, and donor access to them, was the goal.

The Party’s espoused goals are to “raise money and elect Republicans” but they never decided what a Republican is. In many cases, a Republican is a Democrat who put an “R” after their name to get elected. The bills, proposals, and actions of our Legislature sort of prove this.

Once the Republicans consolidated their power they morphed into exactly what we had perceived the Democrats to be, power hungry sycophants to whoever was in the Governor’s office. The idea of honesty was now totally foreign to the political class – there are always exceptions, please don’t write and tell me Representative X was as honest as the day was long – the lie, evasion, non-answer, or just plain ignoring their constituents became the norm. Legislation favoring lobbying groups, donors, and most especially the legislators themselves has become the norm. Just look at what they’ve done to FOIA.

Pulling the view into the more recent past, the RPA under past-Governor Asa Hutchinson had its share of problems. Hutchinson continued the Medicaid expansion started by the Democrats, while rank-and-file Republicans wanted a complete repeal. He vetoed a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors, and at the end of his term was not a Trump supporter in a state that overwhelmingly supported DJT. His successor Sarah Huckabee Sanders was a Trump-supported candidate. She has been disappointing in her lack of populist direction. She’s had problems too – a $19,000 podium is a problem, isn’t it? – and has ruled RPA with an iron hand which, unfortunately for Arkansas, was not in support of the people or the grassroots.

The inevitable result of this was the people attempting to get their rules changes passed at the 2024 State Convention. And the grassroots was successful, only to have the Governor’s pet RPA Chair break the law – signing a document someone else was required to sign – and act on illegal, wrong, improperly presented charges to remove a whole county committee and the person delegates elected to chair the Convention that the RPA hijacked.

It seems that government by the people and for the people is interpreted by RPA as government by the elected for the elected. RPA and the Governor were rabid to insure elected Republicans could still vote in party matters – the grassroots Convention had removed that privilege consistent with the way the RNC and most of the states do it. Of course, this was all accompanied by bad feelings and threats by elected officials, and according to some who know has caused a raft of legislation in the 2025 legislative session that aims at reducing the people’s ability to effect legislation.

From having the strongest FOIA law in the land, in the last couple of years the Arkansas FOIA law has been watered down to limit what the people can know about what government is doing. That movement started when the Governor decided the people didn’t need to know who was traveling with her and was expanded to cover other politicians as well.

None of this bodes well for the people. We have an overwhelmingly red state that is more like a blue state insofar as how our government works. The Legislature doesn’t take the time to actually find out what the people really want, so they wing it. Winging it means what Sarah wants, Sarah gets.

And, if you’re a faithful little soldier, do what you’re told, and ignore doing the right thing in favor of following orders, you will get promoted into a better job or have a position found for you when you lose an election. Maybe even get your own private police force in your new office. All that’s up for grabs.

All you have to do is say “I know nothing” and mean it. Welcome Sergeant Shultz.

If you enjoy our work, you can find more at Jack’s Substack.

Jack Sotallaro

Continuity planning, civilian and military