The View from Rural Missouri by Jess Piper

The conversation I was in Omaha this weekend for our middle son’s wedding. And it was quite the wedding. It was in a gorgeous venue space that my daughter-in-law found on a lake just outside the city. And they couldn’t have been luckier with the weather…it had been raining nearly nonstop for two weeks leading up to the wedding.

Is the one we don’t run I was talking to my friend, Michele Hornish yesterday morning. We text every day, but we talk for an hour or so every Wednesday about work and strategy. We are usually sidetracked for at least an hour on kids and life in general, though. You know how that goes.

There’s an old saying that I have heard all my life, and it has been stuck in my head for years… “If they wanted to, they would.” I remember my grandma using the line often, but especially when referring to my grandpa, whom she eventually left after over 50 years of marriage. When he refused to attend an event for one of the kids or grandkids. Or when he “forgot” birthdays and anniversaries.

I don’t think people should know who I am, or recognize my name, but after I recently made a social media post about rural America, a man told me that I should try to be “the change I want to see.” He then pointed me toward a social media influencer, who honestly seems more like a grifter, and suggested that I reach out to her and try to do better for my own rural community.

Missouri is a beautiful state, both for our natural beauty and for our people. Missouri is also an ugly state because of the imposed tyranny of a GOP supermajority that has had its boot on our neck for 22 years. The party that has harmed our social safety nets. From SNAP to puppy mills. From Medicaid to animal abuse. Cruelty abounds. But the ugliest thing I can say about Missouri is that we mistreat the most defenseless and at risk among us — the most vulnerable. Children and animals.

I didn’t have the most stable home growing up. I guess I could call my childhood chaotic to save the feelings of those who raised me. Throughout the chaos of dozens of moves and almost as many new schools and a revolving door of step-parents, I had one method to deal with the upheaval…I always wrote letters to god. So many letters that I wrote and placed in the highest point in my bedroom — the top of my closet. I left the letters open and face up so god could see them and read them easily.

I crisscrossed the state a few times last week to speak to rural Democrats, and I don’t remember where I was when I looked up to see a huge electronic billboard on the interstate proclaiming, “Vote Yes on Amendment 3. Ban transition surgeries on minors.” If I were not so involved in Missouri politics, I might have been confused about the sign. Amendment 3 is a ballot question about abortion rights — it has nothing to do with “gender transition” surgeries.

The boots you lick will stomp you too… I can’t give credit for the quote because it has been around for a while, and it is used on everything from t-shirts to mugs to signs to billboards. I’ve seen it at protests and rallies. I’ve heard it from both folks on the Left and the Right. I think about the quote a few times a week these days… I was a Literature teacher for years and basically a professional reader my entire life.

The funny thing about the Heritage Foundation is that they have always been upfront about their plans. They write hundreds of pages of plans for the dystopian future they envision, and they don’t hide the plans. They publish them online for the world to see…remember Project 2025?

“The liberal world by definition is literate.” ~Marshall McLuhan I consume a lot of words every day. I work with words every day. I have been trying to read more books than I have in the last few years, but I still always end up reading dozens of articles on current issues every single day. I start with AP and Reuters on my phone. I move on to the Missouri Independent and the KC Star and then scroll on social media to see if I missed anything newsworthy from other states or outlets.