One of those “A” states
If you’re a Canadian, or even a U.S. citizen who isn’t from “the South”, Arkansas is easily mistaken for Alabama. Both are former slave states far below the Mason–Dixon line. Not only geographically at the bottom, both states rank in the bottom 40 of 50 states for places you’d want to live. Both are still too much controlled by Confederate-minded, un-Jesus-like Christians. While Alabama is known as the last place in North America you’d want to be if you’re an open-minded person, we have reason to believe that Arkansas is going to wrest that trophy away from Alabama now that Trump’s protégé Sarah Huckabee Sanders took the reins as Governor. You may remember Sarah as the one who “burns facts and then uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye”. Below we will discuss some of her very first Executive Orders.
Disclaimer: While Arkansas is soon to be the worst state, there are hundreds of thousands of good people who live amongst its population of about 3 million. Even some of the whites, who comprise ~70% of the population, are not hopelessly propagandized.
No TikTok for the pencil pushers
Executive Order To Protect State Information And Communications Technology From The Influence Of The Adversarial Foreign Governments. “…WHEREAS: The video application known as TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance LTD., a Chinese company with significant ties to the Chinese Communist Party, is of particular concern;”
Yep, she had to do something to show the MAGAts that she is a stalwart warrior against communism and the CCP since Arkansas is the headquarters of Walmart, the store where Sam Walton handed over American jobs to the CCP when he began sourcing more and more of his company’s products from China. Good ole Sam rapidly accelerated the sacrifice of Main Street USA in the name of global capitalism — but remember, poorly regulated capitalism is what we want more of, according to a couple of Sarah’s Executive Orders.
Apparently in Arkansas there’s currently an uncontrolled epidemic of Tik-Tokers using state government devices. This crisis has affected the lives of so many Arkansans that Sarah’s first order as Governor was to ban Tik-Tok from all state government devices. The measure will undoubtedly lift Arkansas up from its ranking of 49th (out of 50) for health care in the nation, vastly reducing morbidity and mortality in the state. Just kidding. Arkansas is soon to be the worst state, beat in health care even by Mississippi.
Overreach for me but not for thee
Executive Order To Limit Government Overreach, Reduce Bureaucracy And Review Previous Executive Orders. Who doesn’t love reduced bureaucracy? Sounds good. But what does “Limit Government Overreach” mean when used by today’s neoreactionaries? Without writing another book on this, let’s just agree for now that it means an increase in morbidity and mortality rates for Arkansans in the coming years.
CRT is hiding under your bed at night
EXECUTIVE ORDER TO PROHIBIT INDOCTRINATION AND CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN SCHOOLS. Here’s where it starts to get super fun. If Sarah truly wanted to prohibit indoctrination in schools, she would insist that students not be limited to the dismal failure of the history book known by far too many American children. But what she actually means is that children must be indoctrinated by information compatible with the local hegemonic religious belief system and its 19th century values. Because nothing screams “Limit Government Overreach” like the government hiding reality (past and present) from the next generation of citizens. You can be sure that these teachers will not get their wish (if they haven’t been fired or left the state already).
Will Sarah go so far as to mimic neo-fascist Ronald Dion DeSantis’ knowledge ban? If Arkansas is soon to be the worst state, she will indeed start banning knowledge in an equally dramatic fashion. Fascist leaders are okay with citizens getting enough basic education to become docile workers, but they know that more education leads to a greater understanding of who holds power and why, which leads to more questions being asked — and that’s not good for fascists. Is CRT, in reality, being taught in her state? Don’t bother asking such questions: facts are irrelevant to the MAGAt base that Sarah is talking to when she writes these orders.
We don’t need your stinking regulations!
Executive Order To Reduce Government Rules And Regulations. This one goes out to you, Mr. Trump! As with everything in Trumpism, what sounds good to both the cretins and the UHNWIs spells bad news to general population. Anyone capable of nuance knows that deregulation can lead to disaster, but since MAGAt voters will never make that connection, Sarah doesn’t need to provide details.
This executive order is likely great news for employers who want to abuse and exploit workers, and even better news for corporations that trash local ecologies for a living. The good news for the rest of us is that more environmental toxicity lowers sperm counts, ensuring that Arkansas won’t produce as many children in the long run.
Don’t promote public servants
Executive Order To Institute An Immediate Hiring And Promotion Freeze. This of course does not include the Arkansas Department of Corrections, because there is almost nothing more American than putting people into cages, which in the USA mostly means protecting the haves from the have nots. A primary feature of Trumpism is ensuring that government fails to improve the lives of citizens — or in the very least that more people perceive the government as unhelpful. Trumpist operatives like Sarah can’t achieve a kakocracy when they don’t fill public service roles with unhappy nihilists.
Arkansas Republican Governor Goes Ultra-Woke
Executive Order To Respect The Latino Community By Eliminating Culturally Insensitive Words From Official Use In Government. Who ever imagined an Executive Order could be high comedy? People are laughing from coast to coast (or maybe just on the coasts) at how MAGA-WOKE Sarah has gone. While the term “Latinx” is for sure silly, nobody believes for a minute that Sarah and her fellow MAGAts could give a flying fig about cultural sensitivity. They should rename this one Executive Order To Be As Ludicrous As Humanly Possible.
Arkansas is soon to be the worst state, but…
Sarah Huckabee Sanders was not born evil. She was heavily indoctrinated by father, church, a Baptist university, and a public school system that produces adults who view the world through a pinhole. Everyone grows up with a different degree of indoctrination, but problems occur for all of us when children are indoctrinated to fear knowledge and critical thinking.
Let’s end on a positive note by mentioning that at least one of her orders could be beneficial to children: Executive Order To Prioritize L.E.A.R.N.S. (Literacy, Empowerment, Accountability, Readiness, Networking, And School Safety). If Arkansans are lucky, her tenure could include measures for the common good rather than just treading water with meaty slogans intended to keep the MAGAts fed so that the rich may continue to fleece them.