Missouri Gov. Mike Parson: If you don’t feel safe, just don’t vote. That’s democracy?
Maybe Missouri Gov. Mike Parson should take yet another cue from President Donald Trump and let somebody else handle more of his daily COVID-19 news conferences.
Increasingly, even the most unsurprising, politely phrased and calmly intoned questions get a reaction somewhere between prickly and on the verge of a meltdown, depending on the day and the reporter doing the asking.
That Parson is at war with words themselves doesn’t help, but that isn’t the real problem, which is that so much of what he says is wrong-headed.
Take Thursday’s briefing, for instance. At that outing, in the space of just a few minutes, Parson made three “he did not just say that” statements.
Asked what he’d tell Missourians who aren’t sure they should vote in person in local elections on Tuesday, he took his usual leg-stretching walk around the rhetorical ranch and then said well, if you don’t feel safe, then by all means, stay home.
“I hope people feel safe to go out and vote, but if they don’t, you know the number one thing is their safety should be number one. So if they don’t, then don’t go out and vote. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard myself say that, but if you don’t feel safe, then I wouldn’t do that.”
We don’t know that we’ve ever heard anyone who purports to care about democracy say that, nor would we expect to. Parson’s message that we should bail on voting rather than risking our health is especially outrageous because in Missouri, it’s his party that’s determined to force people to choose between staying safe and doing their duty as a citizen.
A bill that would make it only slightly easier to vote safely is on Parson’s desk, but he hasn’t said whether he’ll sign even that weak, meek legislation, which allows mail-in voting for those who can get their ballots notarized. That’s no help for those who don’t feel safe going out amid this pandemic, of course; why not just require papal dispensation, or a warrant from the FISA court?
Annoying question about Lake of the Ozarks
At Tuesday’s briefing, Parson almost lost it over a question about whether it was the state’s responsibility or that of the counties to enforce the social distancing orders so widely disregarded at the Lake of the Ozarks during Memorial Day weekend. How many times, he asked, would he have to repeat that it was up to counties?
Got it. But county officials in that area have since said that nope, it is up to the state, so at Thursday’s briefing, Parson was asked whether, with neither the state nor the counties doing anything to enforce the order, he would do something to try and break the impasse.
“It is what it is,” he said, annoyed all over again.
If you didn’t want to have to answer any questions, Governor, then why seek public office? If you didn’t want to take responsibility in the greatest crisis of our lifetime, why even go through the motions of governing?
His answer in full to the question of who would enforce the order was this: “It is what it is. The local health department, for example, shuts down restaurants when they’re not doing something right. The state don’t come in and do that. They do that. That’s their job to do that. Look, I’ve been a supporter of local control ever since the beginning I’ve been here as governor. The local control statement needs to take the responsibility, good and bad, and that’s the way it is.”
Sometimes it is. Parson and other Missouri Republicans have opposed allowing Kansas City to make its own gun laws, have opposed local control of the Kansas City Police Department and have opposed allowing local school districts to have control of their own calendar. Republicans including Parson also kept cities from instituting a $15 minimum wage. Yet when it comes to public health during a crisis, it’s over to you, counties, and good luck.
The governor said counties can always go to court to try to force compliance on social distancing, “whether that’s pulling a business license, whether that’s like anything else. COVID-19 has got a lot of attention, but at the end of the day, the rules are still in place that were in place before. Just because COVID-19 doesn’t change it.”
Told that the state health department does have the ability to enforce the order, he said, “I’m not going to send some sort of police action out there. I think that’s a dangerous road to go down, when government has that kind of authority over individuals.”
That he sees nothing in between police action and hands-off pandemonium leaves a complete vacuum of leadership in this state. And what’s dangerous is libertarian laissez-faire in the middle of a pandemic.
George Floyd’s death ‘didn’t look too good’
The impression that Parson is in so far over his head that he’s drowning might have come through most clearly in his answer to a question about his thoughts on George Floyd’s death in police custody Monday after a Minneapolis officer kept a knee on his neck until he stopped breathing.
This is not a hard question. Even Trump has said, “I feel very, very badly. That’s a very shocking sight.” Yes, watching an officer of the peace act as though he’s squashing a bug while draining the life from a man pleading for air is a very shocking sight.
Parson’s thoughts were these: “You know, look. I was in law enforcement for a long time, and you see what’s going on in other cities. You know, you never want to see that. I’ve always held myself to a higher standard, whether I was in law enforcement, whether I was in the military. Well, I’ve been a legislator, and I’m the governor now. When you get in these positions, you’ve got to be held to a pretty high standard.”
“What I know from the outside looking in, probably wasn’t the best of circumstances and people have to be held accountable for that. But again, I want to be really careful where I judge somebody just by what I’ve seen on TV. I don’t know what the facts were, but as a normal person, it didn’t look too good.”
When you’re making Donald Trump look like Malcolm X, you’re not looking too good, either. It isn’t really his performance at news conferences that are the problem, but the fact that they reveal the thinking of the man in charge, and how very far Mike Parson is from meeting this moment.
This story was originally published May 29, 2020 at 5:00 AM.