Gov. Mike Parson is . He served his country for six years in the U.S. Army. He was later a sheriff in Polk County for 12 years and in law enforcement for an additional decade.
This background would suggest that Parson has had some experience learning how to deal with bullies. That seemed to be the case back in 2017. After I wrote a series of columns outlining abuse of veterans in the state’s veterans home in north ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, Parson stood up to Gov. Eric Greitens, his fellow Republican, and pushed for an investigation that the governor eventually ordered.
Sometime in the past few years, Parson forgot how to stand up to bullies. The result is what happened this week in the Missouri Legislature. Anti-science Republicans led by Sen. Bob Onder of Lake Saint Louis refused to confirm Parson’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Senior Services, Donald Kauerauf, because the longtime public health professional believes that masking and vaccines are important tools to defeat COVID-19 during the pandemic.
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Onder and his ilk, most famously the man Parson himself appointed as the attorney general, Eric Schmitt, have been staging all-out legislative and legal war against any pandemic response, weakening public health laws, attacking hospital workers and people in Kauerauf’s field for speaking the truth. Schmitt is suing any public body, including school districts, that seeks to mandate any vaccines or mask wearing during spikes in COVID-19 cases.
Parson lashed out at his fellow Republicans, saying their behavior toward Kauerauf was “disgraceful†and an “embarrassment†to the state.
“Don is a devoted public servant who did not deserve this, and Missourians deserve better,†Parson said.
The governor is right. But he has only himself to blame.
You see, even before the pandemic, Parson was making it a habit to give in to the bullies. Let’s go back to 2019. That year, amid a spike of gun violence in Missouri’s cities, Parson held a series of meetings with mayors of Kansas City, ºüÀêÊÓƵ, Columbia and Springfield. All the mayors, and their police chiefs, wanted help instituting some commonsense regulations that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Parson vowed to help them.
Then the so-called conservatives on the furthest fringes of the state’s Republican Party — the ones who believe the only good gun bill is one that puts more guns on the street — criticized the governor for not loving the Second Amendment enough. Parson backtracked, like a turtle retreating to his shell. The cities got no help. Instead, even with police chiefs and sheriffs decrying the bill, the Missouri Legislature last year passed a federal gun nullification law that is literally defunding police and making it harder for local law enforcement agencies to work with their federal partners.
Parson knew that bill was flawed. But he kept his mouth shut and signed it. He could have stood up to the bullies. He didn’t.
Or take his proposed budget last year, when Parson, following the will of the Missouri voters and the advice of his own economic experts, included money for Medicaid expansion. Then he sat silently on the sidelines as the anti-Democracy wing of his party gutted Medicaid expansion and forced a court case. Parson whimpered away, defeated by the bullies again.
In this year’s budget, Parson flip-flopped on the $15 minimum wage and proposed one for all state employees. Again, good for him. The House budget committee hasn’t advanced his bill.
Parson’s appointment of Kauerauf was a pleasant surprise. But when the state’s own research showed the efficacy of masks and vaccines, the health director spoke the truth : “I think we can say with great confidence reviewing the public health literature and then looking at the results in your study that communities where masks were required had a lower positivity rate per 100,000 and experienced lower death rates.â€
Onder and the bullies sharpened their knives and aimed them at Parson and Kauerauf. So what did Parson do? He cowered to the bullies and became one himself, unleashing an attack on the character of the reporter Rudi Keller, who broke the story, just a few weeks after Parson verbally attacked another journalist, the Post-Dispatch’s Josh Renaud, by falsely calling him a hacker and criminal for doing his job and telling the truth about a flawed state database for teachers.
The bullies who have been pushing Parson around learned their lesson early on. The governor lacks the courage to stand up to them. He doesn’t really mean it when he criticizes attacks on another man’s character. The man who stood up to the Navy SEAL has lost his nerve.
“Throughout this process, more care was given to political gain than the harm caused to a man and his family,†Parson said of the Senate failing to confirm Kauerauf. “I pray that honor, integrity, and order can be returned to the Missouri Senate and that it comes sooner rather than later.â€
Again, the governor is right. But until he applies those same lessons to his own actions — and remembers how to stand up to bullies — they are empty words, issued by a lame-duck governor who has lost the will to fight.