On Feb. 1, Republican Gov. Mike Parson of Missouri tweeted out that he had “accepted the resignation of Department of Health and Senior Services Director Don Kauerauf.” After saying Richard Moore would be the temporary acting director, Gov. Parson went on to complain that “It's unfortunate that we now have to disrupt state operations and the leadership at an entire department because the Missouri Senate chose to indulge a few men's egos.”
What he was referring to was the blowback from Missouri’s Republican state senators who attacked Kauerauf for not being entirely anti-vaccine and questioning whether or not he was sufficiently against any and all abortions. Republican Sen. Mike Moon, who led the campaign against Kauerauf told reporters, “We had an overwhelming outpouring from the people of Missouri from all over the state, and their voices were heard. We acted on their will.”
“Their will” seems to have been the misconception that Kauerauf’s statements that he was hoping more Missourians would get vaccinated was some form of tyranny. Seriously.
What was interesting about this move to rid the state of Missouri of its leading health official during a pandemic was that Kauerauf seemed to say all of the ignorant things we have come to expect from GOP-nominated public health officials. He said he was against all public health mandates; he said he was against all abortions; he said he believes that life begins at “conception.” It seems that his only sin was saying that he believed in trying to figure out ways to get more Missourians vaccinated as an effective public health policy. Not a mandate, mind you. Just saying “Hey, maybe get vaccinated.”
A protest of about 100 people calling for state senators to vote down Kauerauf took place on Sunday. MAGA-hat-wearing dunderheads gave clearly well thought out* statements about their problems with the Department of Health and Senior Services Director.
Deborah Wiersma, of Pacific, Missouri, wore a red hat supporting former President Donald Trump to protest outside the Senate committee hearing. She said even though Parson and Kauerauf don’t support mandates, she’s concerned that they’re still encouraging masking, testing, social distancing and vaccinations.
“I’m against all of it,” she said.
Since chaos is the order of the day for Republicans across the country, now, as COVID-19 numbers and hospitalizations surge throughout the Show-Me state, seems to have been the perfect time to gum up the works. Senate Democratic Leader John Rizzo released a statement:
“Missouri is in the middle of a health crisis and now the state is without a health director because a small but loud group of extremist Republicans are against fighting a disease that has killed 17,000 of our fellow Missourians. Misinformation and lies have defeated professionalism and integrity.”
Rizzo also told NPR that the only criterion for getting rid of the state’s health director seems to have been “because he wouldn’t say that vaccinations were a bad thing.”
It’s a pretty intense example of how the real slippery slope that conservatives have always warned Americans against, with regard to gun safety laws and same-sex marriage, is really only applicable to bad public health policy decisions. Many found Gov. Parson’s frustration with his political allies a real dose of schadenfreude, as Gov. Parson has mangled the response to the pandemic in his state by bending over backward to appease the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers who misinform the public. This is the guy who covered up a study—one that he requested—that showed how mask mandates actually work to reduce rates of infection and prevent deaths.
*See not clear or well thought out.