Arkansas is blessed to have a lot of talented journalists doing their best to keep our state’s citizens informed about what’s going on around them.

One of the best of those journalists is the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Rex Nelson, who might know this state better than just about any newspaper writer in Arkansas.

I know Rex well enough that I think I can safely call him a friend and refer to him on a first-name basis. Rex is one of a few writers whose work I make sure to keep up with and he recently wrote one of the most insightful pieces I’ve read in a long time.

The opinion piece, headlined “The deterioration of rural Arkansas,” was published Feb. 1. It’s not quite as bleak as you might gather from that headline, but the subhead is telling: “Political courage is necessary to stop the state’s downward spiral.”

Part of Rex’s job involves traveling all over Arkansas and he has a special affinity for the rural part of our state. So when Rex sounds pessimistic about the future of rural Arkansas, we’d all be wise to listen.

Rex’s column points to Arkansas’increasing urbanization, which he says is accelerating.

“And we have ourselves to blame,” he writes. Rex goes on to detail — and he’s absolutely correct — how rural Arkansans have “consistently voted against their own interests.”

I don’t want to step on Rex’s copyright here, so I’ll just piggyback on his points.

While Northwest Arkansas and central Arkansas continue to grow, several rural counties have lost more than 10 percent of their population since 2000. The trend isn’t hypothetical — it’s measurable. Much of that population loss is occurring in counties whose economies are built on agriculture.

In fact, Arkansas’ entire statewide economy is dependent on agriculture. We have some other industry, certainly, but agriculture is the foundation of what makes our state go. Yet, Arkansas voters don’t seem to consider how their choices at the ballot box will affect our agricultural economy. That’s the reality of how Arkansas votes — whether in federal or state elections.

Those voting patterns have consequences. In 2022, Arkansans elected Sarah Huckabee Sanders as our state’s chief executive officer, with more than 60 percent of the vote. Can someone please tell me what SHS has done to improve the lives of rural Arkansans? I’ll submit that she has in fact done significant, lasting harm to rural Arkansas, most notably through the disastrous LEARNS Act.

Many rural Arkansas districts operate with fewer than 500 students. When enrollment dips even slightly, the financial margin disappears. Policies that redirect funding away from those districts don’t just “create options” — they destabilize the only school many communities have.

When — not if — rural school districts collapse under the financial weight of the LEARNS Act, the communities those districts serve will grow even smaller. That will mean less support for local small businesses. It will mean fewer congregants for Arkansas’ rural churches. It will mean fewer available services for rural Arkansans. The things that bind us together as communities will slowly cease to exist. The urbanization of Arkansas will become even more rapid. And our tax dollars will be used to send wealthy Arkansans’ children to expensive private schools.

Sanders’ popularity — which remains overwhelming even though I sense it might be dwindling to a degree — translates to political power inside the state’s Republican Party. Legislators feel beholden to do her bidding or face her wrath. Those who dare stand up for the people of their districts can count on facing primary challenges from candidates hand-picked by the governor. What will those hand-picked candidates do if they get elected and sent to Little Rock? Well, whatever the governor tells them to do, of course.

The pattern doesn’t stop in Little Rock. Agriculture contributes more than $20 billion annually to Arkansas’ economy. When trade disputes disrupt export markets for rice or soybeans, that pain isn’t abstract — it lands squarely in rural counties.

Even as the erratic, on-again, off-again imposition of punitive tariffs damages Arkansas’ economy, even as health insurance premiums soar out of reach of their constituents at home, even as rural hospitals confront a looming financial catastrophe, our federal congressmen and senators dutifully do as instructed, rather than risk finding themselves in the political crosshairs.

Of course, rural Arkansans can do something to help themselves. They can go to the polls and cast votes that make sense for the future of our state.

Unfortunately, too many won’t show up at all. And too many who do will refuse to consider whether their votes are accelerating the very decline they lament.

And 20 years from now, our children and grandchildren will ask why we didn’t have the courage to choose differently.