Republican voters, Missouri’s working class needs you to take a stand | Opinion
When my uncle was killed during World War II, I remember as an 8-year-old his funeral, and the many comments from relatives and friends who said he sacrificed himself in order for our nation to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. That quotation coming from a great Republican — President Abraham Lincoln — has been basic to my commitment to this country, which I love now as a 90-year-old man.
But I must register here my absolute outrage with today’s Republican Party. The party now sticks up for the rich, practices wealth fare (so!), takes its orders in Missouri from the so-called “think tank” Show-Me Institute, gerrymanders the state in some insatiable lust for domination — and throws chicken feed to working-class people, with Donald Trump making promises to “make America great again.”
Not only that, but in Missouri we have a Republican majority doing it best to control women’s bodies — a plan that has been rejected substantially by the voters. Yet we still have a majority of Republicans in the General Assembly who want that kind of intimate control over the lives of women and their families.
Yes, we Missourians have differences on abortion rights, but in this case we have a legislative overreach by the GOP that constitutes totalitarian control. The moral and theological issue of abortion is far too complicated to be left in the hands of the electoral ambitions of party extremists devoted primarily to the capture of a constellation of voters necessary to win elections.
Further, just look at the gross inequality in this country since the mid-1970s, when the Republican Party adopted first supply side economics, later rebaptized as neoliberalism. This principle is actually a free market fundamentalism that consolidates huge corporate power in the market and makes it possible for some 50 large corporations, at least, to pay no taxes at all. In the 1950s, businesses contributed between one-third and one-half of U.S. tax revenues. Today, they contribute less than 10%, as we await more cuts for them.
The financial crisis of 2008 made clear the failure of neoliberalism. We now have Trump’s MAGA vision, equally committed to wealth but now in a populist right wing movement that will continue to count on the complicity of working people in their own domination as the billionaires continue to bestow riches in the same places they always have.
On another occasion, I promise to criticize Democratic Party leaders for all the ways they played along with neoliberalism and abandoned working-class people in this country. They deserve what they are getting. The problem is that the American people don’t deserve it.
Please understand: I am no Democrat. I am an independent Christian and attempt to vote the best I can on the basis of the central claims of righteousness and justice in the biblical text. I know many thoughtful Republicans, and they understand that absurdity has taken over their party. We need them now, as I certainly will, to discipline their party by not voting for their candidates for at least one election, and maybe two. Such disciplinary action by the judicious Republicans of our country — who still believe in government of the people, by the people and for the people — could bring the GOP back to its senses.
Finally, I expect the Republican Party to be pro-business but not authoritarian or — dear God — fascist. I shout out to those Americans who love their country more than their party, who stand for a truly free society, who are committed to the common good and who believe this country still has an important witness to the world. Now is the time.
Tex Sample is the Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society at Saint Paul School of Theology in Leawood. These views do not necessarily represent those of the school.
This story was originally published September 10, 2025 at 5:07 AM.