Last week, I posted a letter from Gay White, former first lady of the state of Arkansas.
In that letter, the widow of former Gov. Frank White lamented what has become of the Republican Party now that it has been taken over by MAGA forces nationally and here in Arkansas.
It's important when discussing the state of politics in Arkansas that we understand that the Trumpists are neither traditional Republicans nor conservatives. They have far more in common with the segregationist Democrats of the Faubus years than they do with the brave Winthrop Rockefeller Republicans of that era.
As noted last week, the people who are most upset with what has happened in our state are traditional Republicans, the men and women who worked to build a two-party system during the decades when Arkansas was perhaps the most Democratic state in the country.
I worked full time in my first Republican campaign 40 years ago. At that time, there were so few of us who publicly identified as Republicans that we were all on a first-name basis.
Frankly, it chaps my hide now when some moron describes the good people I worked with back then as RINOs. If those idiots only knew what we were up against.
No Arkansas family was more identified with the GOP in the early 1900s than the Remmel family. On the same day that Gay White's letter to the editor ran in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last week, there also was a letter from Mary Remmel Wohlleb of Little Rock.
Here's what she wrote: "The Republican Party once stood for fiscal conservatism, even when that meant higher taxes on the wealthiest among us. It stood for strong alliances like NATO that kept us all safe and created new markets for us. It stood for small government. It stood for the rule of law and touted the Constitution.
"That party has largely vanished as MAGA zealots have convinced their bases that record low taxes on our wealthiest are not the primary cause of our deficits and debt rather than the critical spending that lifts our most vulnerable out of poverty while creating new consumers.
"The pro-alliance party now is ready to abandon our allies, making us all less safe. The 'small-government,' 'pro-life' party reveals how many girls' and women's lives it is ready to sacrifice as it attempts to codify ill-conceived opinions into law, imposing government intervention in ERs with potentially deadly consequences.
"With a few exceptions, like Sen. John Boozman, Republican 'pro-life' politicians today are the first to cut spending that would eliminate hunger, homelessness and health-care deserts for children and families across the state.
"In a party that once stood for the rule of law, many are promoting the election of a proven con man who has been found liable for sexual assault and defamation and who faces 91 criminal charges on issues that endanger our country both from within and from outside.
"How did this party that many in my family so loved deteriorate into a caricature of itself? Recently, I have grown to admire Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ike. They would all be considered RINOs in today's party. The self-serving Trumpian politicians are the true RINOs, having abandoned significant policies and stands of a once-great party.
"Nothing vaguely patriotic about their current stands. Vote them out!"