The great American philosopher Stone Cold Steve Austin once said D.T.A. “Don’t Trust Anybody”.
Even when President-elect Donald J. Trump says, “We are ending DEI on day one”.
Even when U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt says “voting Republican means DEI is over”.
Even when Governor-elect Mike Kehoe looks into a camera and promises every Missourian that if elected he will end left-wing nonsense like DEI.
Even when every single member of the super majority of the Missouri General Assembly promises their friends and neighbors that if they elect them to the statehouse they will end DEI in state government.
D.T.A.R. – Don’t. Trust. Any. Republicans.
It’s not really that anyone is intentionally lying, it’s that they have so many things on their plate that often times some of the things they say in the heat of a campaign get pushed down the priority list after they are sworn in.
On that note, of the things I enjoy most about politics is that in the end there is a scoreboard.
When there is an election, on election night, or in the case of Pennsylvania several weeks later, they count the votes and the scoreboard tells you who won.
On a piece of legislation. When session ends in May the scoreboard tells you if it passed or failed.
Often, on the way to that scoreboard, there are telling signs of how serious an elected official is about keeping those promises or their priority—small things that foreshadow what the outcome is eventually going to be.
One of the reasons that my #SteinOfKnowledge is so dominant in predicting the future is that I do my hillbilly best to watch for those signs, then obnoxiously predict the future based on them. With a very high degree of accuracy, I might add.
If you are one of the supermajority of Republicans who voted to again make Missouri Republicans the supermajority party in this state in part because of your desire to get rid of some of this woke Marxism like DEI let me give you an update.
There are two ways that right out of the box you can tell if Missouri Republicans are going to take the Trump wrecking ball approach to DEI, or the Liz Cheney do nothing failure and whine approach to DEI.
First off, no it’s not whether anyone is keeping Chlora Lindley Myers as the director. The Eric Greitens pick barely shows up in the office now. There was no way anyone was seriously considering keeping her.
However, ending her reign of woke, and her war on rural Missourah is only the beginning. There is a culture of elitism at the top of that department that she has fostered, a culture of if you wear camo we are your an enemy. If you live on a gravel road you’re the problem. If you don’t wholeheartedly embrace her Marxist theories then you’re just stupid, and a hick, and your input isn’t needed.
That culture is embodied by John Rehagen, Director Myers #2 and her Deputy Director for Wokeism.
You see Rehagen isn’t a Greitens Democrat or even a Nixon Democrat. He is a Holden Democrat. Now Governor Holden is a wonderful man, but to be fair, he is the most liberal Governor this state has seen in this millennium, and that is reflected in some of his hires. Often proudly so.
Two things will tip you off as to how this ends.
#1 Will the members of the supermajority of the Missouri State Senate agree to confirm anyone nominated to head the department that has not committed to fire John Rehagen on day one?
None of that thousand-hour racket B.S. Thank him for his service, and the retirement party is Friday. Hell, I’ll pay for the cake.
If these senators confirm a nominee to head the Department of Insurance without a firm and public commitment to ending the wokeism and in doing so dismissing Rehagen then they have bullshitted you, and you bought it, and you’re a sucker.
You might well know that I have personally spoken to 13 duly elected state senators who directly tell me that they will not allow anyone to be confirmed without a public commitment that Rehagen will not have a job in their department.
Now if a new director nominee lies and after being confirmed decides he has now seen the light of Marxism and embraces Rehagen’s hatred for rural Missourah then I think the Senate has no choice but to take Missouri out of the left-wing NAIC in the budget process.
I happen to know the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee a little bit and he cut the Department of Insurance’s budget last year over their refusal to end this woke nonsense.
I wouldn’t push him again, he ain’t in the mood to be messed with right now. Well honestly, he never is, but he ain’t now either.
My #SteinOfKnowledge predicts that in that scenario it comes down to Rehagen or the NAIC. Hell, Missouri can’t lose in that one, and in my simple hillbilly opinion would be in tall cotton if they dumped both.
#2 Will Governor Kehoe name Rehagen as the interim director?
Now I cannot imagine this happening, but it will be a sure sign of things going hard left if he allows a tried and true left-winger like Rehagen to be the interim. I wonder if Governor Kehoe remembers when Obama rally attendee Eric Greitens named John Rehagen, as his interim director in 2017.
Kehoe could literally name anyone in the western hemisphere and they would be more conservative. Say Bernie Sanders, or AOC, Rachel Maddow, or Tishaura Jones. Literally, anyone would be more conservative than Rehagen. He could just open the phone book of Rolla close his eyes and point and he would find someone better suited to run his department than Rehagen.
Maybe it’s my white-trash optimism, but I have been very encouraged by Governor Kehoe so far. In fact, the day after the election I stayed on after my segment with Alex Bryant on KWTO when Governor-elect Kehoe called in.
He thanked me for our investigation into DEI inside the department. Well, investigation may be a bit much, but I suppose that one man’s investigation is another man’s game of Clue so I’ll take it.
You can listen to the segment here.
Further, no matter if you agree with Kehoe or passionately despise him, I’ve never heard anyone say that he doesn’t keep his word. He is a car dealer for goodness sake, and I still have never met anyone regardless of their feelings about him who has said he does not keep his word.
Here is Governor Kehoe promising the people of Missouri that he will end DEI.
Maybe I’m a naive, but I honestly feel pretty optimistic about it.
In the end, D.T.A.R. is not about calling people liars, or RINOs, or whatever. If we are honest the woke dumpster fire that the Department of Insurance has turned into is not just on state leaders, or the liberal media it’s on us.
Rehagen was hiding in plain sight, hell he even got another award from this left-wing NAIC and put it right there on the internet.
They don’t hide their left-wing elitism. They promote it to the world by sticking their thumb right in the eye of a paper tiger legislature they believe is too impotent to do anything about it.
If we are honest, this problem is the fault of every single Missourian, and every one of us must do the work to keep it at the top of the pile of priorities for everyone who is sworn in on the first day of session til the last.
Until then keep the manta of of Stone Cold fresh in your mind:
D.T.A. Don’t Trust Anybody.
Scott Faughn is the publisher of The Missouri Times, owner of the Clayton Times in Clayton; SEMO Times in Poplar Bluff; and host of the only statewide political television show, This Week in Missouri Politics.
