If President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address was his pitch for voters to trust in Democrats — and his possible run for reelection — newly minted Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ response was the GOP’s pitch for voters to grant a mandate in favor of a “new generation of Republican leaders” who seek to be “changemakers for the American people.”

“While you reap the consequences of their failures, the Biden administration seems more interested in woke fantasies than the hard reality Americans face every day,” Sanders said from the Arkansas governor's mansion, the house her father once occupied. 

Sanders, the former Trump White House spokesperson who recently became the nation's youngest governor, painted a dark, dystopian vision of the country under Biden, leaning into culture war flashpoints.

"Being a mom to three young children taught me not to believe every story I hear, so forgive me for not believing much of anything I heard tonight from President Biden," she said. "From out-of-control inflation and violent crime to the dangerous border crisis and threat from China, Biden and the Democrats have failed you."

In doing so, she leaned into culture issues, referring to her recent executive orders which banned teaching “critical race theory” in public schools, banned use of the term “Latinx” within the Arkansas government and shut down the state’s COVID emergency order. She accused a marriage of “big government” and “Big Tech” seeking to “strip away the most American thing their is -- your freedom of speech,” claiming that Americans' rights are under seige.

"That’s not normal," she said. "It’s crazy, and it’s wrong."

“Most Americans simply want to live their lives in freedom and peace, but we are under attack in a left-wing culture war we didn’t start and never wanted to fight," she claimed.

"It’s time for a change," Sanders added. "Tonight, let us reaffirm our commitment to a timeless American idea: that government exists not to rule the people, but to serve the people. Democrats want to rule us with more government control, but that is not who we are."

Sanders called for change in her party's leadership and the direction of the country writ large, comparing her age to that of Biden -- the country's oldest president -- while once again leaning into culture war issues.

"At 40, I’m the youngest governor in the country," she said. "At 80, he’s the oldest president in American history.  I’m the first woman to lead my state. He’s the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is."

“In the radical left’s America, Washington taxes you and lights your hard-earned money on fire, but you get crushed with high gas prices, empty grocery shelves, and our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race, but not to love one another or our great country," she continued. 

Sanders said the country's "dividing line" is no longer between right- and left-wing politics, but rather a "choice between normal or crazy."

“It is time for a new generation of Republican leadership," she added.

Sanders also took the time during her GOP response to unveil what she called “the most far-reaching, bold conservative education reform in the country.” During her campaign, she promised to remedy, among other things, the state’s teacher shortage and education gap among students. The plan promsied in her campaign sought to create pay incentives for teachers, as well as exapnding “parent choice” regarding schools that would allow public money to pay for private schooling.

“We will educate, not indoctrinate our kids, and put students on a path to success," she said.

“Upon taking office just a few weeks ago I signed Executive Orders to ban [Critical Race Theory], racism, and indoctrination in our schools, eliminate the use of the derogatory term ‘Latinx’ in our government, repealed COVID orders and said never again to authoritarian mandates and shutdowns," she said. 

Sanders focused heavily on her criticism of Biden during her successful bid for governor last year. She frequently railed against the Democratic president’s COVID-19 pandemic response, immigration policies and other stances.

The Republican governor portrayed Biden as weak on national security, saying his “refusal to stand up to China, our most formidable adversary, is dangerous and unacceptable." The comment came days after the American military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon that drifted through U.S. airspace.