After politicians spoke about health care at the Delta Grassroots Caucus conference in Little Rock on Friday, the discussion among speakers turned to race relations and the reasons that rural America supported President Donald Trump.
The caucus, an assembly of private and public leaders from the eight-state region of the lower Delta region, held its annual meeting in a banquet room at the Clinton Presidential Center.
The caucus was formed to advocate for the region and its development, including through the Delta Regional Authority, a federal agency started under President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.
To start the morning session, Republicans, including Gov. Asa Hutchinson and U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford of Jonesboro in person and U.S. Sen. John Boozman of Rogers by video, spoke in succession, pledging support for the caucus's mission, as well as an openness to study a recently announced bipartisan bill to prop up the Affordable Care Act.
Lee Powell, the executive director of the caucus, said the group endorsed the measure -- known as the Alexander-Murray plan for its Senate authors, Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash.
Powell, who served in several positions in Clinton's administration and also worked for a Democratic congressman, cautioned against "bashing absolutely everything that President Trump does." He said the nonpartisan group would praise the president when it believed he made good decisions. That included lauding two of the president's picks to lead the Delta Regional Authority, including Arkansan Chris Caldwell.
Trump's rhetoric, Powell said, was one area of concern.
"We've been deeply disturbed by the resurgence of white supremacism in America," Powell said. "If they move every Confederate statue into a museum tomorrow, the KKK and the Nazis and the white supremacists would find some other pretext to get out their message of hate and to try and incite violence."
After Powell, state Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, pitched her idea -- forged along with Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs -- to create a race relations caucus in the Arkansas Legislature. Lawmakers last month rejected Elliott and Hendren's bid to create a formal subcommittee to study race relations, a response that Elliott said befuddled her.
Because the proposal called on both Republicans and Democrats to be appointed to the panel, "no one's going to suspect we're trying to anything except the right thing," Elliott said.
Later, a panel of academics was asked about issues facing women and minority groups in the Delta and if rural areas would continue to support Trump, who has proposed cutting off funding for agencies such as the Delta Regional Authority.
A pair of researchers at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville said they had conducted polling during the 2016 election that found people with sexist views were much more likely to vote for Trump and other Republicans.
Al Cross, of the University of Kentucky Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, said years of worsening economies in places like the Delta have spurred resentment among voters.
"Trump could not have done it without rural America," Cross said. "We need to remember that and so does he."
Metro on 10/21/2017