Perhaps it’s because I watch too much television, but the early months of the race in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in Missouri remind me a bit of the hit HBO drama/comedy
For the uninitiated, the show is about Logan Roy, the patriarch of the Waystar media and entertainment empire, a clear metaphor for Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, and in every episode for the first three years, Roy’s privileged children fight for his attention and their rightful place eventually taking over the empire their father built.
Sometimes you don’t know whether to laugh or to cry as the troubled and misguided children twist themselves into pretzels to curry favor with dear old dad before he crushes their dreams, as he did in last week’s season finale.
So it is as a band of Missouri GOP misfits bend over backward seeking the blessing of the former president, taking turns kissing Donald Trump’s ring in various visits to Mar-a-Lago, or in jumping in and out of policy hoops so as to be on the same page with the only voter they care about.
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Take Eric Greitens, the former governor who resigned in disgrace while on the way to being impeached by his own party. As he occasionally does, Greitens recently spoke the truth. Similar to what law enforcement professionals have been clamoring for months, Greitens agreed that the poorly written and ill-conceived Second Amendment Preservation Act was a bad piece of legislation.
“What they’ve done in this bill is they’ve actually defunded the police,†Greitens said in a radio interview. He was correct. Federal officials and local police chiefs in Missouri have said the same thing. The bill, meant as a paean to gun worshipers, is making it harder for federal officials to work with local police to fight crime.
But then Trump, or his aligned donors, came calling. And Greitens did his best impersonation of one of the mythical Roy children. If I were casting, I’d say Greitens is closest to Roman, the weaselly sexual pervert on the HBO show. Within 48 hours, Greitens was singing the opposite tune, something the Democrat-turned-Republican has perfected.
Not to be outdone, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt — who seems likely to be cast as Kendall Roy, the son with the greatest lack of self-awareness — came on the scene to create his own unique brand of chaos. Like Kendall marching into a corporate meeting spouting 25-cent words to try to make himself look smart, Schmitt sent “cease and desist†letters to school districts, demanding that they end various mask mandates and quarantine efforts because of a ruling ending county health orders issued by Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green.
Among the many problems with Schmitt’s letter is that Green’s ruling didn’t apply to school districts. If Schmitt wanted to sue the districts to stop their health measures — intended to save lives during an ongoing pandemic — he could, but Schmitt knows that, because he already tried to sue every school district in the state, and his lawsuit was .
But, despite its legal failings, Schmitt’s letter created mayhem anyway, such as in the Rockwood School District, where one parent, a uniformed Arnold police officer, who was properly trying to enforce masking rules. In schools throughout conservative West County, Schmitt’s letter made it harder for children to learn, as some, following their parents’ advice, showed up to school without masks; other parents jammed the phone lines. Teachers and administrators were caught in the middle of a political fight.
Schmitt sought vigilante justice and he got it, which is ironic, because he was asking citizens to enforce a court ruling that he lost, in jurisdictions that weren’t even party to it. It was epically bad lawyering, as the attorney from the Lee’s Summit School District so eloquently pointed out in his letter warning Schmitt that he needs to preserve all of his public records, because retaliatory lawsuits are likely on the way. Like Logan Roy always does, the school districts are going to fight back.
“Your invocation of ‘rights’ untethered to an obligation to exercise them responsibly invites lawlessness,†of the Spencer Fane law firm. “This is especially pernicious coming from your office, because of the outsized weight some may attach to your opinions. But as Missouri’s courts have repeatedly said, the opinions of the Attorney General have no binding authority.â€
To summarize this week’s episode: Schmitt sought to enforce a lawsuit he lost, using authority he doesn’t have, creating chaos in the local schools, all to bolster his Trumpian bona fides against the other Eric, whose epic ability to flip-flop on the same issue in less than a week seems to give him the edge when it comes to getting Daddy’s blessing.
Perhaps Schmitt isn’t Kendall after all, but cousin Greg, the tall and mindlessly ambitious Roy who ended the season making a deal with the devil.
“What am I going to do with a soul anyways?†Greg pondered. “Souls are boring. Boo, souls.â€