Mike Kehoe’s Chilling Message to Peaceful Protestors

His mobilization of Guardsmen stirs ugly memories of our Ferguson nightmare

Gov. Mike Kehoe

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe “played the game” Thursday.

That’s insider talk for doing the politically expedient thing—whether or not it aligns with your stated values. Public officials of both parties do it routinely, but for those in the GOP, it has become a ritual of survival.

Kehoe stunned rational Missourians by mobilizing the National Guard in advance of planned protests against the creeping authoritarian conduct of President Donald Trump. He placated the MAGA wing of his party — ever starved for an opportunity to pick a fight with those branded as enemies or worse by their Dear Leader.

I just wrote in this space yesterday about Trump joining the Dictators Birthday Club. Within hours came word that Missouri would roll over in service of his whims.

It veered off brand for Kehoe, a longtime Republican stalwart known for advancing conservative politics without the venom and hyper-partisanship of so many of his colleagues. The governor has been no friend to progressive causes, yet he’s maintained a reputation for civility across the aisle.

Until now.

Kehoe’s abuse of gubernatorial power lit a ticking time bomb.

“We respect, and will defend, the right to peacefully protest, but we will not tolerate violence or lawlessness in our state,” Kehoe said.

Memo to Mike: Saying that you respect the right to peacefully protest and then threatening peaceful protestors in the same sentence is really not all that respectful.

When a governor announces he’s mobilizing troops on the eve of planned protests, the message couldn’t be clearer to those intending to speak out publicly: Watch your step. Because we’re watching you.

Even if not a single Missouri National Guardsman appears at a single protest, Kehoe’s message of intimidation will have accomplished its unseemly mission.

The governor cannot offer a whit of evidence that the national “No Kings” protest movement would advocate or even tolerate violence. To the contrary — and I can personally attest to this from knowing organizers — great pains have been taken to assure the safety of protestors and assure the legality of their assembly.

I can assure you I’m participating Saturday. Upright but unarmed.

In recent weeks and even days, peaceful anti-Trump protests have been staged all across Missouri, not only in St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia, but in Springfield, Jefferson City and Cape Girardeau. There have been no acts of violence or property damage to report.

Kehoe had to know this as he set in motion the possibility of a collision of Americans exercising their sacred First Amendment rights with government troops implicitly sent for the purpose of discouraging — and perhaps, curbing — that expression.

The danger of this provocation still echoes from the tragedy of Ferguson. The context was profoundly different: those protests emerged from a flashpoint of racial injustice and generational pain. But the government’s response—also involving the National Guard—offered a warning that remains urgent today.

When peaceful protest is met with a military posture, the results are often tragic—and entirely avoidable.

As CNN would report, in the deeply studied aftermath of Ferguson, leaked Missouri National Guard documents “used highly militarized words such as ‘enemy forces’ and ‘adversaries’ to refer to protesters.”

The “No Kings” movement isn’t an enemy army. These are patriotic people with homemade signs. They’re veterans, moms, college kids, clergy. They’re Americans who still believe that the First Amendment means something.

And now, thanks to Kehoe, they might be required to exercise their constitutional rights under the watchful eyes of soldiers.

In America.

That it’s happening under Kehoe — someone who many of us thought was better than this, even as we disagreed with his ideology — makes it all the more disappointing.

It appears Kehoe has made the same calculations that so many Republicans in the Trump era feel compelled to make: better to overreact than be accused of doing nothing. Better to look tough than thoughtful.

And above all: never cross Donald Trump.

On the same day Kehoe mobilized the Missouri National Guard, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was thrown to the ground and handcuffed by Secret Service agents for interrupting an event headlined by Gov. Kristi Noem.

That followed recent ICE-related arrests of a sitting Wisconsin judge, a Congressional staffer, a labor union leader, and others. I wrote here about the danger posed to all us by ICE emerging as a de facto secret police force.

What we’re hearing is the sound of democracy cracking.

This isn’t a game anymore.

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