Dan Schaefer for Missouri

When some lawmakers stop winning public support, they stop trying to earn it. Instead, they use their power to force their views on the rest of us.

We cling to an 18th-century structure and hope that somehow it will withstand the pressures of a 21st-century society. Clearly, our Constitution has hit a breaking point.

What kind of nation will we become when both our news and our entertainment are held hostage by billionaires eager to please a mafia don? How do we stay connected when our channels of satire, storytelling, and shared truths are weaponized to keep us silent?

Democracy only survives when people believe it works for them, providing justice, opportunity, and dignity. When those promises are broken, faith in democracy collapses.

There's a growing movement that's quietly transforming America, dismantling the wall between church and state.

The Show-Me Institute claims to champion the cause of liberty. But the only thing they seek to liberate is your money from your wallet.

In the United States of Anxiety, the authoritarians win by paralyzing us with anxiety. Don't let them!

With a massive prison infrastructure and an army of political goons at his disposal, Trump will shift his focus toward new targets: Americans who refuse to get in line with his goals.

We live in a free country, but only if you have the money to pay for it.

The white men in the cabal of faux Christianity are not disciples of Jesus. They have taken the language of Christianity and twisted it beyond recognition. In their hands, religion is no longer about compassion and grace; it’s about power and control.

In Missouri, the system has been rigged for over a decade, opening the door to create an environmental disaster just like our neighbors to the north. And who rigged it? Look no further than the Missouri Legislature, controlled by Republicans for over two decades. Under their watch, one law after another has stripped power from local communities and handed it to corporate agriculture.

Fascism doesn’t happen overnight. It gradually takes hold through unrestrained corporate influence, militarized rhetoric, and the gradual loss of civilian oversight of the military. A key aspect of fascism is the rise of corporate leaders to positions of government power, allowing them to suppress dissent, gut worker protections, and accumulate unlimited wealth and influence.

It’s a cascading pattern: violent rhetoric leads to political assassination, which is exploited to stoke fear, and finally, a subservient population, allowing our leaders to seize absolute power.

It’s hard not to think of The Handmaid’s Tale, where women are reduced to vessels for childbearing, controlled and surveilled by the state.

In Trump’s America, we are rapidly learning that the old notion of “hard work pays off” no longer holds true. The virtue of working hard rings hollow in an era when the average American family is far worse off than when the so-called “Reagan Revolution” launched over forty years ago.

If lawmakers truly believed in fair economic growth, they would force the wealthy to absorb the risk, rather than leaving hardworking Missouri families holding the bag. But our lawmakers chose complexity over clarity, and billionaires over ordinary Missourians.

A confrontation between the people and their government is increasingly possible with each passing day. And if history is any guide, the American people will rise to meet the moment.

If we believe we are powerless, then we will be powerless. But if we remember that, in America, we are the source of power, the illusion breaks.

The problem isn't about raising babies; it's about building a society worth raising them in.

Let’s stop giving away the store. Let’s start making deals that treat taxpayers with the respect they deserve.