Republicans Just Won't Stop (Part 1)

After almost 20 years, populism endures in the RPA

It was just a year ago today that everyday conservative Republican voters all across the state were excitedly preparing for the 2024 Republican State Convention last June 8, where they planned to approve major rules that would equalize power within the Party, close GOP primaries, and make judge races partisan, among other historic changes that would forever alter the trajectory of the Republican Party in Arkansas.

What a difference a year makes! Take a look where we are today. In the last 12 months, we've seen the Republican Party of Arkansas (RPA) engage in increasingly desperate actions against those same everyday voters / Party members in its attempt to eradicate the populist MAGA influence that's still rising strong within the Party. But, after almost 20 years, the RPA is still playing whack-a-mole with populism within the Party.

And it's plain to see that populism continues to endure within the RPA, no matter how hard the Party pushes back or how many everyday conservative voters it banishes and/or ignores.

War Against MAGA

It's so easy to see now. It's an old guard war against MAGA, characterized by a distinct difference between more educated and politically aware voters who want to support winning Party candidates that adhere with their votes to the Republican platform of smaller, more fiscally prudent, socially conservative government vs. the establishment, old guard donor group that singularly drives to "raise money and elect Republicans" so that the Party remains in power, no matter what that entails during campaigns or after getting elected. It's a matter of "the ends justifies the means" vs. "how we accomplish our goals is as important as the goals themselves."

Much of the country thinks Arkansas is in wonderful shape because we have Republican super-majorities in our Legislature and all our GOP constitutional officers are Republicans, plus we have President Trump's former press secretary Sarah Sanders as Governor. But everyday MAGA voters in Arkansas know that's not at all the case. We want to document here the major outlines of this ongoing struggle of MAGA Constitution-driven voters vs. the old guard political class who pretends to support our President while steadily working against MAGA within the Republican Party of Arkansas.

In the interest of space, we’ve left out many, many details as we tried to record the high points of this MAGA vs. establishment Republican war. This post, in two parts, is still very lengthy, sorry! So there's more to come, and we encourage you to send in your views and personal perspective.

Not Just Arkansas

Republican infighting is happening in many other states across the country, too, as more and more conservative voters are recognizing the differences between the Republican principles and platform statements many of our elected Republican congressmen, and state lawmakers and constitutional officers say they support and the votes they make and actions they take. The RPA, in particular, is having to work very hard to try and ensure its Party faithful retains control because MAGA-oriented conservative voters — party members — continue to demand more fidelity to the platform than the Party has demonstrated in the past.

2007: Republicans and "Those Ron Paul People"

This Republican Party war had its beginnings almost twenty years ago and is still ongoing.

State-wide skirmishes began in earnest with the appearance of what the RPA disparagingly called "those Ron Paul people"“ — conservative, more libertarian, and energized voters who began to exert their influence in the GOP around 2007-2008 when Paul first ran for president on his then-unique fiscal responsibility platform by joining county committees in groups. This era marked the very beginning of the decentralized TEA ("Taxed Enough Already") movement that eventually resulted in what we now call a red wave across Arkansas and the country, putting Republicans into majorities at the 2010 general election.

The RPA rank-and-file responded by just closing ranks. Plans were concocted behind closed doors, standing procedures were manipulated, and state Party Rules were skipped over and then selectively applied to block those individuals from even joining the Party and/or wielding any real power. That successful effort not only repelled "those Ron Paul people" over a handful of years but also weakened the Party's core ability to win elections across the state and contributed to the Party's bad reputation with many conservative-leaning voters.

Setting Up

As a Faulkner County Republican Committee (FCRC) executive team member back then, I watched first-hand how Chairman John Nabholz and the GOP faithful arranged meeting and election agendas by setting up favored players to make motions, then provide the required parliamentary second to go forward and, of course, finish it off by calling the question for a vote before dissension of any kind could be brought up publicly.

Republican county committee membership numbers were much smaller back then; the Democratic Party still had the majority in most local and state politics. When the FCRC met in a local restaurant, a big meeting meant 20 people in the room, so it was routine for the establishment to manipulate every outcome that required a committee vote, a maneuver the old guard repeated successfully across the state in other county committees.

Another tactic establishment Republicans still rely on today for critical votes at County, District, and State Republican meetings is to load the room with donors and elected officials. These individuals, who generally do not typically attend county committee or District GOP meetings unless they are the scheduled speaker, *always* have a vote, no matter how active/inactive within the Party they may be or how many meetings they miss (watch for more later on that latest fiasco in Craighead County over inactive/active members). It's still easy for the old guard to send the word out about critical meetings and by just showing up, establishment Republicans can many times sway the vote to their will.

These actions helped the RPA to ensure they kept the old guard faithful in power positions. In 2007-08, all the RPA had to do was put the word out to close ranks statewide; they killed off "those Ron Paul people" by just shutting them out. Those energized, newer, active voters who had joined their county committees then just left, realizing the Party had no intention of welcoming them in, no matter how conservative they might vote or how much campaigning they may feel energized to do.

2009-2010: TEA Party Voters

In February 2009, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli called for a nationwide "tea party" to push for lower taxes, a balanced budget, and reducing the national debt through reduced governmental spending. A politically active mother from NWA traveled all across the state to rally worried conservative voters, and numerous TEA party groups sprung up over the next two years, many of which were made up mainly of local Republican party members.

Those members began recruiting others; as a result the RPA and county committees began to grow substantially. But with those newer members, who had their eye on platform issues and Republican voting records in both Congress and the Arkansas Legislature, came increased intra-party tension between that drive for fiscal responsibility and old guard's "the way we've always done it." At the same time, though, the RPA and county committees were more than happy to recruit and deploy this large, growing army of volunteer workers to elect Republicans across the state. The old guard's mantra? "The Party exists to raise money and elect Republicans."

Taking 2010 Mid-Terms Seriously

During the 2010 mid-term general election, TEA party Republicans hit the streets, taking up the Party challenge to "raise money and elect Republicans" seriously by spearheading large door-knocking, phone banks, fundraisers, and other election-oriented events.

TEA party Republicans were now involved at such a very high level because they took the GOP to heart when it said "doing the work is how you gain credibility within the Party." After the Legislature approved separate Party primaries in 2007, TEA party volunteers rose to that GOP challenge, knowing that (at that time) registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans 302,000 to some 230,000 in Arkansas.

Those of us who were there then know that, without a doubt, Arkansas "went Red" in 2010, the beginning of Arkansas' current total Republican Party domination, because of all those TEA party volunteer hours and the sheer number of volunteers.

But the RPA lied. Then-RPA Chairman Doyle Webb never ONCE gave TEA party Republicans the credit due for that success (or otherwise during his entire longest-state-GOP-Chairmanship from 2008 to 2020). And again, because the Party ignored the contributions of its dedicated, passionate TEA party voters, many of those fiscally responsible, conservative Republicans who had joined the Party to promote those values just left and dwindled away.

But as before, others stuck around, bringing those fundamental differences between the establishment and "we the people" in the Party to a high simmer. All the while the Arkansas GOP old guard under Webb felt they had managed to keep the upper hand.

But Republican conservative voters were becoming more and more aware of the damage being done as the Obama presidency from 2009 to 2017 dismantled more and more of our liberties and freedoms. In Arkansas, Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson was throwing his support increasingly behind more moderate issues. A negative undercurrent was flowing through the state GOP, both because growing numbers of newer conservative voters were becoming unhappy with the Party and also because, even though many Arkansas Republican lawmakers supported Hutchinson publicly, they were also sometimes working against him behind his back (a dynamic that changed when Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders took office in January, 2023, by the way).

And then, along came Donald Trump down that elevator in 2015. All former political assumptions went right out the window, but the RPA still didn't seem to truly get that Trumpian message. That ongoing war is still ramping up even as the RPA fights to contain the populism trend running through the Party.

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Because this post is so lengthy, we’ve broken it up to two parts. Watch for “Republicans Just Won't Stop (Part 2)” tomorrow…