Rodney Govens talks to a woman from the Order of the Eastern Star while campaigning for Congress in Hardy, Arkansas at Founders Day: Glynn Wilson
The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –
HARDY, Ark. – It takes time to get oriented in a new place as a writer, especially after experiencing nearly catastrophic trauma on the road.
But less than two weeks after leaving Maryland and passing through Virginia, West Virginia, a sliver of Missouri and crossing the Mississippi River into Eastern Arkansas, we finally hit the road again with a purpose on Saturday headed northwest to the quaint small town of Hardy near the Missouri state line.
It was Founders Day, and the people were out in numbers in country garb checking out the craft fair at the town civic center, where artists and artisans were selling everything from hand-crafted jewelry and bird houses to home made fried apple pies.
A local man in Founders Day overalls selling kettle corn: Glynn Wilson
The mission was to meet up with Rodney Govens, a Democrat who is running a long-shot race for Congress against entrenched incumbent MAGA Republican Rick Crawford, no household name here with no real fame like some of his conservative colleagues, namely Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordon.
In fact, most people we talked to had never heard of Rick Crawford, didn’t even know who had been elected to represent them in Congress, probably because according to numerous sources here, he never comes home from Washington to talk to the people in his district or do anything to help them out.
One or two people who did know something about him used a nickname to refer to him as “Slick Rick.”
This inspired one observer to suggest a social media and TV ad spot for the campaign, with the recurring theme: “Where’s Rick? Where’s Rick? Where’s Slick Rick?”
There’s also the problem of the press and media disintegration of recent years, when people have lost the ability to turn to a central, reliable media source for information like a local daily newspaper. We talked about this with students at Arkansas State on Friday, pointing out that the objective press of 20th century America has all but disappeared, replaced by politically partisan media and social media where people are only exposed to one side or the other, reinforcing their partisan biases.
Learning How to Understand and Avoid Fake News
Most balance has been lost, upsetting the equilibrium in society, and leading to this hyper political divide we see in the U.S. electorate. This tends to cause chaos and confusion in public opinion, something that becomes apparent when talking to local folks.
My first impression of Mr. Govens revealed an intelligent, compassionate, confident man, who is comfortable talking to all kinds of people about their concerns, from the man who made the hand-crafted bird houses as a hobby to a local volunteer fireman, from the head of the local Masonic Lodge and the do good ladies of the Order of the Eastern Star, to a Vietnam veteran and Teamsters union representative who sees a need for new representation in Congress for his state.
We are working on more detailed, independent profiles of both candidates in this race. See our first story on why this is nationally important here.
U.S. House Seat in Eastern Arkansas On the Line in 2024
But for the purpose of putting this coverage into historical context, our regular readers should know that in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected president and when Birmingham’s Doug Jones defeated former Judge Roy Moore in the special U.S. Senate election in 2017, Mr Govens and his family were living near Anniston, Alabama, watching the story develop.
Rodney Govens and family: NAJ screen shot
At the time Mr. Govens, a former signal specialist with the U.S. Army, was working as a network operations manager for Earthlink. From news coverage of that campaign, he learned about Doug Jones’ experience as a U.S. attorney when he prosecuted members of the Ku Klux Klan for their involvement in the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.
He’s admired Jones ever since.
“Doug received the service award from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute,” Govens said in an interview. “He’s prosecuted KKK members in Alabama courts and he’s fought for racial equality at every turn. He embodies what it is to stand up to bullying and standing up for the right things, even if they are unpopular.”
“John Lewis, one of my heroes, was the same way in his life,” Govens added.
Lewis, a friend of mine through my close friend Spider Martin, one of the photographers who documented the Civil Rights Movement back in the 1960s, also campaigned for Doug Jones in 2017 before he died, telling people they need to “vote like they’ve never voted before.”
So that’s one reason his campaign responded to our proposal to come here to see if we could help on our way out west after a spiritual experience in nature led us in this direction.
Secret Vistas: A Spiritual Experience in Nature and a New Direction
Rodney Govens talks to a man from Cherokee Village who builds bird houses while campaigning for Congress in Hardy, Arkansas at Founders Day: Glynn Wilson
Meanwhile Down in Alabama
A sign outside Bryant-Denny Stadium before the Alabama-Georgia game makes fun of Trump’s debunked claim of migrants eating peoples’ dogs in Springfield, Ohio, turning it into a meme about beating the Georgia Bulldogs: NAJ screen shot from a Google image
The Associated Press is not what it used to be, and carried a story on Saturday night after the Alabama-Georgia football game that can only be described as “weird.”
Alabama held on to win the game 41-34 after a heroic comeback in the second half by Georgia that turned it into a nail-biter of a game to the very end. A Washington Post sports writer called it the game of the year.
But former President Donald Trump was in Tuscaloosa for the game Saturday night after railing against immigrants on the campaign trail in the Rust Belt.
“You gotta get these people back where they came from,” Trump said of immigrants in Wisconsin as he repeated the lie about Haitians eating peoples’ dogs in Springfield, Ohio.
Some Alabama fans took a meme about this and sported signs, stickers and buttons that read: “They’re eating the Dawgs!”
Not everyone on campus was thrilled with Trump’s visit or the weird joke.
“There is, I think, a silent majority among the students that are not with Trump,” said Braden Vick, president of Alabama’s College Democrats. Vick pointed to recent elections when Democratic candidates, including President Joe Biden in 2020, vastly outperformed their statewide totals in precincts around the campus.
“We have this great atmosphere for a top-five game between these two teams, with playoff and championship implications,” Vick said, “and it’s just a shame that Donald Trump has to try to ruin it with his selfishness.”
Trump came as the guest of Alabama businessman Ric Mayers Jr., a member of Trump’s Florida golf resort Mar-a-Lago, who said in an interview before the game that he invited Trump so that he could “enjoy a warm welcome,” and some Alabama fans did cheer for Trump, while others booed.
Mayers also invited Alabama Senators Tommy Tuberville, a former head football coach at Auburn University, Alabama’s arch-rival, who is a staunch Trump supporter who happens to be from Arkansas.
He also invited Katie Britt, a former Student Government Association president at Alabama. She got famous for delivering the Republican response to Biden’s last State of the Union address, drawing rebukes after using a disproven story of human trafficking to echo Trump’s warnings about migrants. She was pilloried on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” and turned into a national joke.
Joining the politicians in the suite were musicians Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr. Herschel Walker, a Georgia football icon and failed Senate nominee in 2022, traveled in Trump’s motorcade to the game.
Fencing surrounded parts of the stadium, with scores of metal detectors and tents forming a security perimeter beyond the usual footprint, AP reported. Sisters of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority showed their security wristbands before being allowed to their sorority house directly adjacent to the stadium. Bomb-sniffing dogs stopped catering trucks carrying food. Hundreds of TSA agents spread out to do an unpopular job: imposing airport-level screening for each ticket-holder.
Trump apparently showed no apparent and outward loyalty to either team. He will carry Alabama’s 9 electoral votes, while he may need Georgia’s 16 to have any chance to win. But according to AP, the tie he was wearing was not crimson. It was Georgia red.
Former President Donald Trump in Tuscaloosa for the Alabama-Georgia game Saturday night: NAJ screen shot
More Photos
Rodney Govens talks to a volunteer fireman while campaigning for Congress in Hardy, Arkansas at Founders Day: Glynn Wilson
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