Editorial Roundup: Missouri
St. Louis Post-Dispatch. December 30, 2023.
Editorial: Some thoughts about the year just passed — and hopes for the new one
As 2023 circles the drain today, it’s a good time to reflect on the year that’s ending and the one that starts Monday.
That’s what New Year’s resolutions are all about.
Just as individuals can leverage the annual turn of the calendar for personal improvement — lose weight, exercise more, swear less, be nicer — so society can use it to facilitate course corrections in its politics, its policies and its most pressing debates.
With that in mind, we offer these suggested resolutions regarding some of the issues we have explored with our readers in 2023, and will continue to examine in 2024:
St. Louis politics. Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, who was lifted into office in 2021 by a hard-left defund-the-police coalition, has spent much of 2023 grappling with the reality that addressing the constant crises of a troubled and violent city requires more than just social programs.
Faced with St. Louis’ continued ranking among the nation’s most crime-ravaged cities, Jones this year signed a 2024 city budget that significantly increases police spending, infuriating her progressive base.
They were unhappy as well when, in another fit of sanity, Jones put the kibosh on a bonkers proposal that would have allowed homeless people to legally urinate in public.
Resolution: Jones should accelerate her tentative steps away from the fringe left and toward the political center. It’s where most St. Louisans are.
Missouri politics. The state’s right-wing political leaders this year were confronted with real-life societal problems like high crime, underperforming schools, outdated infrastructure and an inadequate health care system.
They boldly responded to these challenges by … forcing state oversight on public libraries, restricting transgender sports participation and sabotaging abortion-rights referendum efforts.
As we will discuss in more detail in an editorial coming Tuesday, the legislative session that starts this week promises more of this unhinged extremism.
It’s being driven largely by the coming year’s elections — not the Nov. 5 general election, in which virtually no Missouri office currently held by a Republican is expected to fall to a Democrat; but rather the Aug. 6 GOP primaries, in which Republicans at all levels will try to out-crazy each other for the approval of the right-wing mob … er, base.
Resolution: If Missouri voters can’t bring themselves to finally break the GOP’s death grip on state politics in the general election, at least use the primaries to elevate Republicans who prioritize public service over culture-war pandering.
Gun violence. More than 40,000 Americans were killed by guns in 2023. They included victims of some 650 mass shootings, among the most of any year on record.
These are utterly insane numbers by the standards of the rest of the advanced world. Any argument that denies the link between America’s saturation of easily available, unrestricted guns and its outlier status in gun deaths might as well deny gravity.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Polls consistently show vast majorities of Americans (including gun owners) support common-sense reforms like universal criminal background checks for gun purchases and red-flag laws to withhold guns from the mentally ill.
The only reason such public consensus isn’t heeded by Congress and the legislatures is because even Americans who support gun sanity too often don’t prioritize it when they vote.
Resolution: Prioritize it.
Climate. The year that ends midnight Sunday was the hottest on record at any point in recorded human history. All of the 10 hottest years on record have happened since 2000.
Those records have coincided with the highest concentration of carbon dioxide ever recorded in the atmosphere, which in turn has coincided with modern industrialization.
Arctic ice loss, rising ocean levels, stronger storm patterns, unprecedented drought and other impacts that were predicted by scientists decades ago have come to pass.
Resolution: Endeavor to explain these easily verified facts to anyone in your life who continues to live under the delusion that the planet isn’t in grave danger from human-caused global warming.
Abortion rights. When the U.S. Supreme Court last year overturned Roe v. Wade, the majority decision waxed on about how abortion law was being taken out of the courts and “returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
But what happens when the will of “the people” isn’t reflected by their elected representatives?
In the red states of Kansas, Kentucky, Montana and Ohio, the answer is that the people pushed back to protect abortion rights in defiance of politicians who would eviscerate them. Those four states are among the seven that have considered the issue on a statewide ballot since the fall of Roe; all seven have come down in favor of protecting those rights.
This is why politicians in Missouri and other red states with draconian abortion bans are scrambling to make it more difficult to change policy via referendum. Simply put, they don’t want “the people” to have a direct say in the matter, because polls show even conservative voters tend to support reasonable abortion rights.
Resolution: Whatever their views on abortion rights, voters should insist that “the people” have their say.
The presidential race. This is President Joe Biden’s Christmas message last weekend on X (former Twitter):
Today, may the light from the first Christmas illuminate your homes, warm your hearts, and kindle your hopes for the year to come. From the Biden family, we wish you and your family a peaceful and healthy holiday.
This is former President Donald Trump’s Christmas message on his Truth Social network:
Merry Christmas to all, including Crooked Joe Biden’s ONLY HOPE, Deranged Jack Smith, the out of control Lunatic who just hired outside attorneys, fresh from the SWAMP (unprecedented!), to help him with his poorly executed WITCH HUNT against “TRUMP” and “MAGA.” Included also are World Leaders, both good and bad, but none of which are as evil and “sick” as the THUGS we have inside our Country who, with their Open Borders, INFLATION, Afghanistan Surrender, Green New Scam, High Taxes, No Energy Independence, Woke Military, Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Iran, All Electric Car Lunacy, and so much more, are looking to destroy our once great USA. MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Resolution: Decide that in our politics today — especially today — decency matters.
Happy New Year.
END