In 2023, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed Christian nationalist activist and a zealously anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice former state senator Jason Rapert to the state library board. Predictably, his tenure on the board has been anything but smooth, with Rapert regularly lashing out at his fellow board members for refusing to support his far-right agenda and complaining that he’s been experiencing a “hostile work environment” because he is “a Christian white male.”
During a recent episode of his “Save The Nation” program, Rapert’s frustrations boiled over as he called on the state legislature to abolish the library board entirely, declaring that his fellow board members “probably should be tarred and feathered.”
“The Bible says, ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,'” Rapert said. “Well, when you have leaders that are not allowing the nation to be blessed of God, they’re not doing godly things, you need to replace them, get rid of them, get them out of office, put people back in there that will. You’ve got schools where they’re fighting over allowing homosexual, LGBTQ material to be utilized to groom children. … There needs to be people that will take up and sue anybody that is allowing that sort of thing to go on in our school districts and in our libraries.”
“I serve on the Arkansas Library Board,” Rapert continued. “I cannot get those other board members to take a stand to stop some of the smut that is in those libraries. It’s ridiculous. I’ve made motions trying to do it, and I am at a point now where it’s going to take so long to get new board members on there, if I were the legislature, I would run a bill just to abolishing the Arkansas State Library Board and let it be reconstituted. Put new people in there, or maybe they just need to call on people to resign if you’re not going to do your job.”
“When you don’t protect children in America, you have no business serving in a public official’s role,” Rapert griped. “You have no business serving on a board, you have no business serving in a state legislature, you have no business being an elected official at any level if you’re not going to protect children. When you get to a point that you’re so confused and you’re so completely jaded that you cannot make a decision to keep smut or pornographic stuff [away from] children, you’ve lost your ever-loving mind and you need to be replaced. You need to be taken out. Some people say, ‘Oh, he’s talking about violence.’ No, I’m not talking about violence. You need to be run out on a rail. You probably should be tarred and feathered. That’s what they used to do in America is they would tar and feather those kind of folks. Get rid of them. Teach them a lesson. Get them out of office.”
| Every day, Right Wing Watch exposes extremism to help the public, activists, and journalists understand the strategies and tactics of anti-democratic forces—and respond to an increasingly aggressive and authoritarian far-right movement. The threat is growing, but our resources are not. Any size contribution will help us continue our work and become more effective at disrupting the ideologies, people, and organizations that threaten our freedom and democracy. Please make an investment in Right Wing Watch’s defense of the values we share. |
