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GOP state lawmaker rips the MAGA wing of his party in late night post

On social media, state Rep. Walt Blackman decried the GOP’s “hard-right faction” that has ditched the tenets of Ronald Reagan.
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Republican state Rep. Walt Blackman has clashed with some of the more far-right members of his party. Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0

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The Republican Party controls both chambers of the Arizona Legislature, the White House and both houses of Congress. Things are theoretically good for those in the Grand Old Party — but one GOP state lawmaker instead sees his party teetering on the verge of a crisis.

In a lengthy Sunday night tweet — titled “The Republican Party stands at a crossroads” — Republican state Rep. Walt Blackman decried the outsized influence of the party's “hard-right faction,” railing against unnamed fellow lawmakers in his party and calling for more focus on the issues that really matter.

“As a Reagan Republican and combat veteran, I've watched with growing alarm as the party that once stood for ordered liberty, strong defense, and economic freedom has increasingly embraced performative outrage over principled governance,” Blackman wrote. “This transformation threatens electoral success and the foundation of conservatism in America.”

The sainted image of Ronald Reagan looms over Blackman’s post. (Democrats might disagree on how beloved the 40th president should be.) “The traditional Republican platform rested on what Ronald Reagan described as a three-legged stool: faith, freedom, and force,” Blackman wrote. But his party’s far-right wing — Blackman never mentions Trump or MAGA — “has effectively abandoned this balanced approach, focusing almost exclusively on grievance politics and cultural warfare.”

That same wing has “mastered the art of internal censures and social media outrage,” Blackman continued. To underscore his point, he harked back to Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego’s win over MAGA acolyte Kari Lake in the 2024 election. (Again, Blackman did not mention Lake.)

“The 2024 Senate loss by 73,000 votes represents not a surge in progressive values,” Blackman wrote, “but a rejection of Republican infighting and extremism by independents and moderate conservatives who still believe in traditional Republican principles but can't stomach the current atmosphere.”

It’s not clear what prompted Blackman to post the missive late Sunday night. The Snowflake Republican — that’s the town he lives in, not a pejorative — has not yet responded to questions from Phoenix New Times. But it’s not hard to guess which far-right Republicans to whom he might be referring; Blackman has bumped heads with a few of them.

wendy rogers in 2022
Republican state Rep. Walt Blackman trained his ire on GOP state Sen. Wendy Rogers after Rogers single-handedly held up his bill to criminalize stolen valor.
Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0

Clashing at the Capitol

Last year, he won election to the Arizona House of Representatives by defeating a particularly MAGA candidate in the Republican primary — Steve Slaton, who owns the Trumped Store in Show Low. During that primary, Slaton was revealed to have fabricated aspects of his military service, deeply offending Blackman, who is an Army veteran.

Earlier this legislative session, Blackman ran and ultimately passed a bill criminalizing the act of stolen valor, which is claiming or embellishing military service. To do so, though, put him in conflict with MAGA state Sen. Wendy Rogers, who represents the same legislative district. Rogers is a huge Trump fan, an Air Force veteran and a friend of Slaton’s.

She also sat on a committee that Blackman’s bill needed to clear, and single-handedly prevented it from receiving a hearing. Earlier this year, Blackman ripped Rogers online for getting in the way.

Through a strike-everything amendment and the help of GOP state Sen. Shawnna Bolick, Blackman’s bill circumvented Rogers and ultimately passed into law. Before that, though, he erupted in fury when far-right state Rep. Alexander Kolodin — who continually votes controversially — cast the lone “no” vote against his bill in the House.

“When you say no, you are saying no to over a million people that have put their lives on the line — half a million veterans in this state,” Blackman said on the House floor after Kolodin’s vote, his voice building with rage. “You are saying, ‘I don’t care — I don’t care that you died or had friends that died. I don’t care.’ It’s about the rule of law!”

It wouldn’t be surprising if Blackman was referencing those battles in his Sunday night post, though it’s unclear how far up the party hierarchy his critique is meant to reach. Parts of it seemed aimed at the Trump administration and its clear disregard for the U.S. Constitution.

“Reagan's conservatism wasn't a brand or a personality cult — it was a governing philosophy informed by the Constitution and proven effective through implementation,” Blackman wrote. “It balanced individual liberty with collective responsibility, limited government with necessary action, and American strength with diplomatic engagement.

“If we hope to reclaim this legacy,” he concluded, “we must reject the false choice between principle and pragmatism, recognizing that true conservatism encompasses both.”