A Wider Doorway

If Arkansas is serious about civic engagement, it has to belong to more than one brand

This week, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders stood with Erika Kirk of Turning Point USA and encouraged Arkansas students to start Turning Point chapters in their schools.

Let me begin here: at a moment when public officials too often seem more interested in narrowing civic life than expanding it, I welcome any public embrace of civic engagement. Truly. If the governor wants young people involved in public life, good. We need more of that, not less.

But let’s not confuse a narrow invitation with a broad democratic vision.

We heard Erika Kirk’s call to youth. But it was strikingly narrow. She spoke of political participation through a frame that centered “young, white, male men.”

That is a remarkable way to talk about participation in a democracy.

Because the promise of civic life is not reserved for young, white, male men. It belongs to young and old. White and brown and every hue in between. Male and female. People whose clothes you approve of and people whose clothes you do not. People whose names make immediate sense to you and people whose names ask you to grow a little. People you understand easily and people who live and love differently than you do.

If we are going to talk about participation, then let us talk about it all the way.

I am fond of this country’s bold founding claim that all are created equal. We have never lived that promise cleanly or consistently, but it remains a standard worth invoking. And if it means anything, it means equal access, equal opportunity, and equal protection under the law. It means civic life cannot be the property of one demographic, one ideology, or one branded political pathway.

Now, to be fair, I do not profess to have all the answers.

But neither does Turning Point USA.

That is why we must engage.
That is why we must associate.
That is why civic life must remain broader than any one organization claiming to speak for the people.

Tocqueville understood this long ago. Political associations are the great free schools of democracy, and the art of association is its mother science.

That insight still matters. Democracy is not something we inherit fully formed. It is something we learn by doing, by gathering, by arguing, by organizing, by solving problems alongside people who are not exactly like us.

That is why this moment is clarifying.

If Arkansas is serious about civic engagement, then the task before us is not to build one branded lane into public life. It is to build a civic culture in which people of every age, background, and viewpoint can learn, participate, organize, and lead together.

That requires more than recruitment into one national political apparatus. It requires spaces where people can ask hard questions, test ideas, build skills, serve their communities, and discover that citizenship is not performance art. It is practice.

In my own work in Arkansas, I have seen what happens when people are given the tools, the confidence, and the invitation to step into public life. They show up. They ask better questions. They begin to understand how decisions get made, where power sits, and how ordinary people can move it. They do not need to be handed a brand to belong. They need room to learn, room to act, and room to matter.

That is the kind of work I believe in. It is also the kind of work I have tried to build through civic education efforts like ENGAGE: not a pipeline into one ideology, but a broader entry point into community life. A place where young people can learn how power works, how public problems get solved, and how their own voices can matter in the places where they live.

If this week’s proclamation opens a conversation about civic engagement, good. Let’s have that conversation.

But let’s have it honestly.

Arkansas does not need a narrower civic doorway.

It needs a wider one.

And if we are serious about democracy, then participation has to belong to all of us.

Note: If you want to see the kind of civic learning I’m talking about, ArkCAN’s ENGAGE program is here: www.ArkAction.net under Get Involved → ENGAGE: Young Voices, Real Impact. The current ENGAGE page describes it as a high school leadership program where students earn service hours, receive mentorship, and design community projects