Even at local MAGA event, women weren’t applauding former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens
I attended another “We The People of Jackson County” meeting in Lee’s Summit this week because I wanted to hear their guest speaker, Missouri’s disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. Lots of women in the crowd refrained from applauding him. I noticed.
He tried to turn the allegations behind his 2018 resignation into a positive. Greitens was charged with invasion of privacy after allegedly blindfolding and taping a woman to a piece of exercise equipment in his basement. After ripping her shirt open and pulling her pants down to her ankles very much against her will, she testified, she saw a flash and believed he took a photo. While she cried and begged to be let go, she said, Greitens coerced her into oral sex, according to a report from state House investigators.
Greitens declined to testify, and she was believed by both Republicans and Democrats on that committee. The charges were dropped, which to him and his supporters means that he was exonerated of all wrongdoing.
That’s not the case, but I was curious to know how this group of conservative Christians would react to Greitens’ comeback bid.
In his campaign speech at the event, Greitens invoked God as his defender. “Sometimes the Lord will give you pain you don’t want,” he said. “I’ve been so blessed because now I clearly see the face of the enemy.”
Many cheered. But from where I was sitting, rows of women didn’t even applaud. They just sat there. I asked a few about their thoughts on the former governor, but they didn’t want to talk.
I wasn’t expecting a warm reception from the group. After I wrote what they viewed as a critical column about them in December, its leader, Chuck Quesenberry, challenged me to join them again.
On my return visit, Quesenberry quickly singled me out, saying: “Oh, The Kansas City Star is here tonight.” I heard a lot of boos at first but then some applause — maybe from folks who admired that I would even show up.
Then, a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, with more teasing from Quesenberry: “Does the person from The Kansas City Star know the pledge?” The crowd laughed. Then we all sang “The Star Spangled Banner.”
The group’s goal is to put their members on every school board, city council, county commission and in mayoral seats across the Kansas City metro area: “We are going to take back every one of these little towns,” Quesenberry says.
“We are good, hard-working people that care,” he said. “We are good people that want the truth. We are good people that want to be educated.”
They are also people who are resolutely opposed to mandates; more than two gender identities; and teaching school children about America’s history with racism and sexism, or what GOP lawmakers have dubbed critical race theory. That concept actually started in law schools. It studies the impact of racism on American institutions and is not part of the K-12 curriculum.
“We’ve got to take over the Republican Party,” Greitens told the crowd, a comment that got rousing applause.
But take it over from whom? And do these particular hard-core conservatives think he’s the best qualified candidate?
From what I could see, the women in the crowd haven’t forgotten the former governor’s history. His fate could depend on their judgment.
Tough crowd? Maybe, but I did get a smile and a hug from one woman who said, “If you didn’t have tough skin I guess you couldn’t make it in your business. Thanks for coming.”
