Photo: William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum Hillary and Bill Clinton were tenants of the Arkansas Governor's official residence from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992.
Marco Bélair-Cirino in Little Rock
Published at 12:00 am
- United States
Sarah Huckabee Sanders descends a grand staircase in the Arkansas governor’s official residence, which is covered in a carpet embroidered with the names of every governor who has resided there, including Bill Clinton. It’s hard to believe that Bill and Hillary dominated the political life of this southern state, which is now a laboratory for the MAGA movement, for more than a decade.
The daughter of former governor Mike Huckabee first gained fame for having the “honor” of serving as President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman from 2017 to 2019. In Washington, D.C., she was criticized for “burning the facts and then using the ashes to create a perfect smoky eye” and to look like Aunt Lydia (a sadistic character from the television series The Handmaid's Tale) at a White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
Sarah Sanders is home today, in the comfort of her neo-Georgian mansion in Little Rock, where the sweet smell of bacon and scrambled eggs hangs in the air on this August morning. She’s about to unveil the 14 finalists for the 2025 Arkansas Teacher of the Year in front of an audience of education professionals. She says she has remained “humble” thanks in particular to her three children, then recalls some strong measures of her “Arkansas Learns” plan: a substantial increase in the basic salary of teachers, the granting of 12 weeks of maternity leave, the allocation of new resources intended for children having difficulty reading…
Photo: Marco Bélair-Cirino Le Devoir Governor Sarah Sanders, during the ceremony unveiling the 14 finalists for the title of Arkansas Teacher of the Year 2025
His education agenda also includes a ban on the teaching of critical race theory and “indoctrination,” and a voucher system that allows parents to enroll their children in a highly rated private school—a religious school, for example—rather than the less highly rated local public school, without breaking the bank. Teaching the Bible or posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms is not mandatory in Arkansas, but it is in Oklahoma and Louisiana.
Culture War
Arkansas is one of the theaters of the culture war that is raging across the United States. Governor Sanders has signed into law a law preventing trans people from using bathrooms or locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity, and another that discourages health care professionals from providing gender-affirming care to trans people. In her eyes, “there is only the woke visionfar-left party in America that is inadequate to protect children.” Additionally, she supports erecting a monument to symbolize the abortions that were performed in Arkansas before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision in 2022.
The heyday of “pragmatic populism” is behind Arkansas, says Jay Barth, director of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. Full-throated partisanship has taken over politics in the state of 3 million. And the personalities of the gubernatorial contenders are seen as less important than they used to be. “Not that they’ve been completely absent, but social issues have long been muted in Arkansas politics. There was more focus on education and health care and other more fundamental issues, rather than hot-button social issues,” he says, standing just steps from a replica of the White House Oval Office as it was in the 1990s — where visitors can have their portrait taken behind a replica of the Resolute Desk for about $15.
From Blue to Red
Arkansas is a one-party state. It was the Democratic Party from 1874 to the 2010s. The party of the donkey lost the governor's residence three times, during the periods 1967-1971, 1981-1983 and 1996-2007, but enjoyed a majority in the General Assembly until the presidency of Barack Obama. The black, urban, cosmopolitan man failed to seal ties with rural Arkansas. The white man Donald Trump succeeded. Since then, Arkansas has gone from blue to red.
At a coffee shop, Patsy Sharp pouts at her “too spicy” soup. The retired civil servant, who moved to Arkansas from Oklahoma 50 years ago, admits to being one of the state’s diehard Democrats. “When I first came here, they asked me, ‘What do you want to vote for?’ I said, ‘Republican!’ They said, ‘Honey, you don’t want to be a Republican in this state. You’re not going to have anyone to vote for.’ I voted Democrat!” That’s what I’ve been doing ever since,” she admits, refusing to taste her soup again.
Photo: Marco Bélair-Cirino Le Devoir Patsy Sharp, seated in a café in front of a soup that’s too spicy
Most of her friends and family have switched their Democratic Party cards to Republicans, but Patsy has remained a Democrat. For life and death. She trusts neither Sarah Sanders nor Donald Trump, who “lies like he breathes,” she says, scanning the flower on the table in front of her. “My kids don’t even realize it,” she laments. “Hillary and Bill had a vision to help America prosper…”
Bill Clinton left more than a presidential library, an airport and a boulevard named after him and portraits in Little Rock government buildings; he put education issues at the top of the state’s political agenda, and he emphasized ethics by regulating campaign financing and lobbying, among other things. “Bill Clinton also paved the way for historical outsiders to enter politics, not just people of color, but women. “I think that legacy lives on,” says Jay Barth, who co-wrote the textbook Arkansas Politics and Government.
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Currently, the Republican Party controls not only the governor's mansion but also both houses of the General Assembly, with the Democratic Party having just 18 members (GOP 82) in the House of Representatives and six members (GOP 29) in the Senate.
From her office on Capitol Hill, Sarah Sanders can see, to her left, the 10 commandments inscribed in stone. The controversial monument is now protected by bollards designed to stop the momentum of any motorist trying to imitate Michael T. Reed. In the spring of 2017, the Arkansas native drove his Dodge Dart into the granite slab, which broke when it hit the ground.
Photo: Marco Bélair-Cirino Le Devoir The 10 commandments are inscribed on this granite slab, protected by bollards.
In the midst of a rebuilding campaign, the Democratic Party is now scrambling to break the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly, which would give it a say in budget and tax bills.
Democratic strategist Austin Ross says he senses a wave of disapproval toward the Sanders administration, particularly over its vouchers, which favor private schools at the expense of public schools. “These kinds of policies are motivating Arkansas Democrats in a way they haven’t been motivated in a long time,” he says, walking the halls of Democratic Party headquarters, which are stacked with campaign materials of all kinds, including dozens of “ Arkansas for Biden-Harris” posters destined for recycling.
In the shadow of the Capitol, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas is on every front—at the Capitol, in the press, in the courts, in the elections with referenda—to stop the Sanders administration’s steamroller. The team is working to “protect the pillars of American democracy”—like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, not to mention women’s reproductive and abortion rights, trans rights, and the rights of people of African-American descent—in a toxic political climate.
“It used to be possible to disagree without denigrating the person you disagreed with,” says ACLU of Arkansas Director Holly Dickson. “[Donald Trump] gives people permission to say and do things that they themselves previously considered unacceptable. We’ve seen a real shift since the Trump presidency, which Sarah Sanders was a longtime spokesperson for. And the governor has brought that hostility home.” “It's incredibly disappointing,” the activist continues before offering a mini-Constitution of the United States, accompanied by a note indicating “what to do if you are stopped by the police,” to the Devoir.
Demon and conspiracy theories
The religious radio station Faith Radio does not hesitate to present Kamala Harris' running mate, Democrat Tim Walz, as an ally of the devil since he defends LGBTQ+ people.
Conspiracy theories from Trump supporters, including those about the Clintons, continue to flourish in Little Rock. “I don’t particularly like him or his wife. They’ve done bad things,” says Richard Bogatch, standing outside his pretty purple home in the heart of Little Rock. Then he goes on to talk about human trafficking for sexual exploitation in the United States, repeating one of the wildest conspiracy theories of the pre-COVID-19 years. The man recently moved from California to Arkansas to be closer to his children. Sarah Sanders “does a lot to help people here,” he notes.
Conservatives feel right at home in Arkansas.
The William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum is working to strengthen Arkansas’ “civic health” through a variety of initiatives, including a series of workshops for teachers. “Anecdotal evidence shows that Arkansas is in very poor shape, whether it’s voter turnout, voter registration, or other indicators of a healthy democracy,” Barth says. “We see it as our responsibility to use the resources at our disposal to revitalize civic health in the state of Arkansas,” he adds.
After Sarah Sanders delivered a speech at her state residence, Le Devoir approached Arkansas’ 2024 Teacher of the Year, Beau McCastlain, to discuss the concerns of his students, including a few aspiring journalists, about the state of democracy in Arkansas. Without warning, a female official grabbed the man regardless of his title and shielded him from questions from Devoir.
This report was funded with support from the Transat International Journalism Fund-Le Devoir.
The nine students of Little Rock
From her office, Governor Sanders can see, to her right, the sculptures representing the nine African-American students who forced the desegregation of the city’s public schools in 1957. The crisis left a lasting mark on the history of Arkansas and that of racial segregation in the United States.
Not far away, guide Nick Johanson walks toward the main entrance of Little Rock High School, inviting the twenty or so people following him to “put themselves in the shoes and shoes of the nine students who were forced to desegregate the city’s public schools in 1957.” Elizabeth,” who is one of the nine heroes of the struggle for equality in the United States. “Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate,” Little Rock residents shouted as she tried, amid jeers and spitting, to enter the school to take classes alongside white students,” he recounts under his very wide-brimmed hat. Governor Orval Faubus, who had done everything he could to keep the doors of Little Rock Central High School closed to African-American students, saw his popularity rating soar in the wake of the crisis. He even made it onto Time magazine’s list of the 10 most respected people on the planet, just behind the Pope.
“That said, we have a series of political leaders for whom this event was pivotal,” says scholar Jay Barth of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. “Bill Clinton is one of them. He was 11 years old when the crisis happened. He became very close to the Little Nine personally and invited them to the governor’s residence, seeing them as important symbols of progress and change. Other governors have been shaped by these events. The current governor, Mrs. Sanders, attended this school.”