These aren't Missouri values
Governor Mike Kehoe's move for a mid-decade gerrymandering and crushing direct democracy has nothing to do with our values and everything to do with keeping power
“Stubborn as a Missouri Mule”
I grew up with that phrase echoing in my head as a kid in suburban St. Louis. It’s a point of pride for many of us. We were famous for our mules that became the engines of westward expansion and even our wars.
I was led to believe that it was something that our native son President, Harry S. Truman, said often. I was wrong about that.
To the contrary it’s a phrase that was used ABOUT him often and, frankly, I like that better.
We are proud of our heritage and our absolutely unique history. It’s one that most Americans have no idea exists. They see Missouri as a hick state smack in the middle of the country, as the perfect representation of ‘flyover country.’
There is even a running joke online that our state is so empty of anything that when you look at the map it appears our two major cities, St. Louis and Kansas City, are both trying to escape over the border to Kansas and Illinois.
I grew up here. We all had to take Missouri history lessons and civics to learn about our home state. Most folks have no idea how fascinating and different this state in the heartland truly is.
Did you know that St. Louis actually belonged to three different countries in one day? On March 9–10, 1804, the city changed hands three times during an event known as "Three Flags Day.” Though the Louisiana Purchase was completed months earlier, the ceremonial transfer of the territory from Spain to France and then to the United States was carried out in St. Louis over a 24-hour period.
Here is the really disheartening part. Up until that day women were key parts of the economy and livelihood of this frontier city. Women owned taverns, trading posts, and ran the businesses that supported the men who went west up the Missouri river through the Ozark mountains to trade with the natives, trap beavers, and gather other prized products for the growing country.
Women woke up on March 9 with all the rights to own those businesses and lead their community and by dusk on the 10th they were stripped of those rights under new United States law. The US system instantly saw them as inferior and had their businesses taken from them, their rights to autonomy stripped away, and given to men.
That’s before we even talk about what happened to black men and women in the new United States territory. It’s incredibly disheartening to learn that in 1804 men and women that had toiled to build this country found themselves with less when becoming Americans.
Like the story about Harry Truman and our stubbornness, I didn’t learn that part of our history until I was an adult. I didn’t know that when we became part of the United States, we became somehow less free. Less equal.
We’ve been fighting for those rights ever since.
The Show Me State
That brings us to the other Missouri phrase we are known for: the ‘Show Me State.’ That one seems to have been twisted by a lot of folks over the years. No one is really sure where it came from originally, but it became our badge with an 1899 speech by one of our members of Congress.
Representative Willard Duncan Vandiver delivered a speech in Philadelphia where he famously said, “Frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I’m from Missouri. You’ve got to show me.”
The core of it is a simple idea. We were the great American frontier. The famous St. Louis Arch is actually named “The Gateway Arch” in honor of St. Louis, and Missouri, serving as the gateway to the west. Anyone who left our early colonies and states in the East passed through St. Louis on their way West.
America’s famous, or infamous, manifest destiny passed right through Missouri as we expanded. The folks here heard and saw it all. From well-off business men and their fancy clothes and liveries to poor immigrants from Germany that scraped together what little money they could to go west to fulfill their dreams.
All of them brought stories of the east, dreams, fantasies, and often, lies. Missourians became famous for their stubborn disbelief of many of those tales. They wanted to see the facts, examine the roots of these ideas, and figure it out for themselves.
It’s one thing to tell me…and even more important to show me the facts.
Led by mice
Without going down into the weeds, we are in the midst of a fight for our democracy here in my midwestern home. Donald Trump got mad at our longtime Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver for criticizing him, so he ordered our Republican governor, Mike Kehoe, to dismantle his district and give him another Republican seat in the House.
Here is the part that will bake your brain after reading about our unique history above: Kehoe said “yes, daddy!” without a bit of hesitation.
Now our Republican supermajority legislature is in special session doing Trump’s will to launch an un-Constitutional mid-decade gerrymandering of our already completely out of balance maps. As it stands we already have a 6-2 map of Republican seats vs. Democratic seats in a state that voted 42% for Kamala Harris, and now these pathetic spineless losers are going to make it 7-1 so daddy doesn’t lose power in what promises to be a wipe-out of a midterm next year.
These sad men and women aren’t stubborn. They aren’t asking for any facts to be shown. They simply got a map from the White House and are marching in lockstep to do whatever Trump wants. They’re cowards.
Harry Truman was a lion of a politician. He led the wartime investigation of contractors overcharging for war materials and construction during World War II against the wishes of his own party’s President. He literally took his personal car and drove all over the south to see with his own eyes the failed construction projects at badly needed military training sites.
His investigations saved billions of dollars that were being stolen by unscrupulous millionaires and corporations as we sent our sons off to fight. Even though Roosevelt resisted the effort, he would get credit for the work from the public and promote Truman to be his Vice President where he would take over as President before the end of the war.
It was Truman that decided to end the war with Japan with two nuclear bombs, a decision that weighed on him until his death. It was Truman that famously had a sign on his desk that said “The Buck Stops Here.”
Now instead of being led by lions, we’re led by mice…small people who only care about power and greed. Desperate to cling to their positions of power and willing to do anything to keep it, including ignoring the will of their own citizens and trampling their much-touted Christian values.
These people are cowards, charlatans, and pathetically spineless nobodies. History will forget them the minute they leave office for doing nothing to advance the interests of this state. They’ve done nothing to make lives better for the people that elected them, nothing but ignore and spit on the people who didn’t.
We remember Harry Truman because he was a man of principles - a humble man who stood by his beliefs even as his own party attacked him for questioning the way things are.
Now we have Mike Kehoe and the Republican leaders of our legislature that are trying to pass a “Missouri First” map handed to them by Donald Trump and ordered to pass on the lame social network that he owns. Openly declaring that with their slavish cooperation he will win the midterms.
Trump isn’t even hiding the corruption and his goals, but now you know the legacy of this great, and special, state. We aren’t flyover country. We weren’t the place to avoid. From the earliest days of the colonies all the way to the heyday of Route 66, Missouri was a way point for those heading west or back home to the east.
Now we are a stepping stone for corrupt politicians. Did you know that all three of our last state Attorney’s General have lied and said they would complete their terms and all three have run for higher office or left for appointments in D.C.? You know their sad names now: Josh Hawley, Eric Schmitt, and now Andrew Bailey, they all used Missouri as nothing more than a temp job to move on to bigger things.
We get a vote
Now it’s our turn to show them they are wrong. Our Democratic state representatives and senators are fighting tooth and nail to stop this theft and the parallel effort to dismantle our Initiative Petition system. But, as I mentioned, this is a Republican supermajority and if every cowardly Republican votes for it they will win and it heads to the courts.
To do it they have to vastly dilute not just one but three Republican safe seats. What were easy wins are suddenly in play. We will run good candidates. We will fight for every vote. We will flip those seats and send a message to D.C. that we aren’t your flyover state or stepping stone.
This isn’t an issue of Republican or Democrat. It’s not left or right. It’s good vs. evil. It’s freedom vs. subjugation. This is about politicians and billionaires deciding who will represent us instead of us picking them.
We have been fighting to get our rights back since the day the U.S. flag went up the pole on the banks of Mississippi River in 1804 and we aren’t stopping now.
We aren’t your subjects to be ruled.
We are Missouri and we don’t kiss the ring.
So, let’s get in the fight.
Fascinating, Fred! Thanks for the Missouri history and civics lesson. I was fortunate to have two dear work colleagues from the Show Me State: one from St. Louis, and one from Kansas City. Both stubborn, but in the best way! And both rightfully proud of their home state. 😁
I am inspired by what I read! Many red states are following #Trumps order to gerrymander. However, you are right, it won't matter at all if the good people of Missouri realize who will show them what is possible and VoteBlue.
We must build a team that is willing to stand up and fight. I love the Harry Truman analogy.
My grandfather was a farmer from Missouri. My mother studied to be a nurse in St. Louis and my Aunt became a Teacher there so I feel connected.