Ferguson 10 Years Later: Pain, Hijackers, and Hometown Heroes

Before Mike Bown

Growing up in north St. Louis County I remember a vibrant community full of churches, bars, VFW halls, Knights of Columbus, shopping malls, movie theatres, and all of the amenities working, and middle-class post-war Americans desired. To be a kid who loved sports, like me, north county offered Khoury League baseball, JFL football, little league wrestling, boxing gyms, soccer clubs, hockey clubs, basketball leagues, and much more. I played plenty of sports growing up in organized leagues (wrestling, baseball, and football); but I played more with kids in the street. When I wasn’t playing sports, I was listening to Jack Buck and Mike Shannon call Cardinals games on KMOX radio, sneaking up late at night to watch pro wrestling, reading wrestling and boxing magazines in the store because I couldn’t afford to buy them, also reading the St. Louis-based The Sporting News to keep track of stats, admiring the photos and articles in Sports Illustrated, of course reading the sports section in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch daily, and watching whatever sports were aired TV on the weekend for households without cable, topped off by sports news coverage from the likes of Jay Randolph, Ron Jacober, and Art Holliday on Channel 5.

Yet, while all of this was going on, which has left me with a life of fond memories, the north county, and my personal story, isn’t complete without looking at other events. The sports sections of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch discussed Whiteyball, our loss of Big Red football, almost losing the Blues to Canada, and the Steamers; but the news and businesses pages were far bleaker. St. Louis had then, and has now, one of the highest rates of violent crime in America, political dysfunction and corruption, and countless municipal fiefdoms. These pages also contained news of factory closings and job losses. Like Michigan, Pennsylvania, northeast Ohio, and other parts of the Rust Belt; working-class St. Louisans were reeling from job losses. North county was built up and populated by factory workers and those in the building trades, the small houses were built for guys like my dad who left high school and walked right onto an assembly line, and when those factories close, and the builders stop building, the economic conditions that underpin the health of families and communities erode. When Combustion Engineering in north St. Louis laid off my dad, uncle, and other relatives in the 80s, it hit like a micro version of the Great Depression. The saving grace would come years later when my dad joined my grandpa at GM, which had moved from north city to St. Charles County, skipping north county in the process, and my uncle getting rewarded for his service loading dead and wounded American bodies into helicopters in Vietnam by getting hired at the federal records center in Overland.

Beneath the changing economic conditions was the issue that defines St. Louis, and in particular, north county. Race. North county was largely farmland before World War II with a sprinkling of small towns mixed in. Old Town Florissant and Sacred Heart Parish in an example of historic north county which was a community of French and German Catholics who later welcomed and embraced Irish and Italian Catholics. Like south St. Louis City, places like Ferguson and Florissant, bonded together at church, in labor unions, and in neighborhoods. The problem is that these tended to be nearly exclusively white, and as the Black population of north city spilled into north county in large numbers beginning in the 1970s, this began to create tension. As a reference point, my dad graduated from Riverview Gardens in 1970 when the first Black student enrolled, today the school is virtually 100% Black. After splitting with my dad, my mother, who lived in north city and north county with us as small kids, took my biracial younger half-siblings to be raised in the Shaw and Dutchtown neighborhoods of south city, because she deemed the Riverview Gardens schools to be too white and racist. I stayed in Black Jack and then Florissant along with my older sisters, dad, stepmom, and grandparents.

As economic conditions became unstable in north county, white families began moving out to St. Charles County, and Black families began settling in areas that had previously been all-white, the existing white establishment relied on police departments, most of them either all-white or close to it, to act as a buffer zone. This frequently was manifested in traffic stops with places like Jennings being the worst. White residents of north county feared crime rates would soon mirror those in north city, and these fears were only heightened after high-profile crimes such as the 1982 kidnapping and murders of Gary and Donna Decker in Bellefontaine Neighbors, the stabbing death of McCluer North student and football player Dan Mckeon (brother of two professional soccer players) at a 1987 party in Florissant, the rape and murders of the Kerry sisters in 1991 at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, and the rape and murder of freshman student Christine Smetzer by a fellow student in a McCluer North bathroom in 1995.

Meanwhile, Black families arriving in north county for better schools, safer communities, and more amenities, after generations of legalized housing segregation in St. Louis City and County, often faced the brunt force of aggressive north county policing. Instead of harassing criminals and reducing crime, police departments in north county were often harassing students and law-abiding citizens coming home from work, church, or a night out. Before body cameras and smart phones these police interactions often included profane and racially abusive language and frequently beatings. This created a climate of distrust and anger in the Black community in north county. Crime was going up, but police were harassing law-abiding citizens instead of stopping criminals, and Black residents were also disproportionately victims of crimes that received far less media attention. As the racial composition of north county municipalities changed to majority-Black, voter turnout remained higher among longtime and typically older white residents. This meant that the numerous city halls and police departments in places like Ferguson remained nearly all-white even as whites became a minority in those communities.

In 2014, north county was a powder keg waiting to erupt. All it needed was a spark. That’s why I began writing about north county in my Evening-Whirl column and for the Huffington Post. No one was talking about north county and it was ready to explode. Local media focused on stories about bike lanes, hipster neighborhoods, and business as usual. Months before August 9th, I told Paul Fehler, of the Pruitt-Igoe Myth and political fame, that if there was a riot and civil unrest in St. Louis it would be in north county. A week before August 9th, with future mayoral candidate Cara Spencer watching, I had a heated argument with legislative aide Michael Powers at The Royale because he said I talked about problems in north county too much. Everything in the county is fine, I was told, all focus must be on the city.

Then it happened. Mike Brown Jr., a recent graduate of Normandy High School, walked to an immigrant-owned and ran store with a friend (most such stores in the Black communities of St. Louis are owned by Palestinian Muslims), there was an altercation, but nothing out of the ordinary for a St. Louis hood store, and as he walked through the apartments and onto Canfield at the edge of Ferguson, he met up with Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The encounter was fatal and almost certainly avoidable. Ferguson immediately handled the situation in a reckless and insensitive manner. Allowing the dead body of Mike Brown to lay in the streets for hours, and bringing out police dogs to intimidate family members, neighbors, friends, and those brought out by social media posts and discussions on Black radio.

What happened that day, we’ll probably never know the entire truth. What we do know is what happened on August 9th of 2014 permanently changed St. Louis and America.

My Time in Ferguson

People have to remember that what became known as the Ferguson Uprising was not something that was instigated by academics, leftist political organizations and organizers, out of town celebrity activists, intersectional dogmatists, or people with college degrees. The anger at the death of Mike Brown came from the neighborhood. A neighborhood ranging from lower middle-class to generational poverty. People struggling and hustling just to stay above water. The community came out August 9th, but the uprising began August 10th and that was a day when an older generation of pastors, community leaders, and politicians were largely pushed aside, by a younger generation seeking an immediate redress to their grievances. It was leaderless and often without direction. Purely organic and there was a beautiful sense of community in the early days. Elders such as Anthony Bell attempted to provide direction (Bell setting up voter registration tables); but the situation was too fluid and beyond the capabilities of individual organizers.

I first arrived in Ferguson along with my friends Naji and Anthony, both Black men. Neither had a background in activism. Naji had grown up in East St. Louis in the 1950s and 60s, before going to prison for a series of crimes in the 1970s, getting a college degree in prison, and living an exemplary life after his 1992 release. Anthony is an educated white-collar guy who graduated from Cardinal Ritter High School (attending with Cori Bush) and later Bethune-Cookman University (an HBCU in Florida). Nothing prepared us for the reality of what was going to unfold in the coming months.

From the beginning, I sought to use whatever platform I had to highlight the history of north county and attempt to tell a story of how we arrived at this moment. Having said that, like everyone else, I was caught up in the drama and passion of the Ferguson moment. I made videos, wrote some articles, cowrote a few pieces with Sarah Kendzior, and appeared on many local, national, and international news outlets (Al Jazeera links aren’t working). I was also arrested twice in Ferguson, threatened with arrest many more times, received numerous and graphic death threats, sparred with police supporters, lost my cool, provoked, was provoked, and finally lost my job and shortly thereafter my apartment (and in the middle of all of this, my grandma died and I was in a messy relationship). If you look at photos I didn't have grey hair before Ferguson. A few months later I was buying Just For Men.

I found a way to piss off police supporters and get under their skin, as did guys like Bassem Masri. In my estimation, the reasons for that are twofold. Firstly, we both grew-up in north county, so many of the people responsible for targeting and doxxing us were those we either grew-up with or went to school with. I saw lifelong friendships created in the Ferguson-Florissant School District end over Facebook posts during the Ferguson Unrest. This was mostly along racial lines. Secondly, unlike most activists, or those you see on Ivy League campuses today, we didn't talk and sound like spoiled brats, smart alecky rich kids who'd have to go to therapy for decades after one physical altercation. We'd been in plenty of fistfights, street brawls, and I'd been shot at and stabbed. Twitter trolls, insults, and radio talkshow hosts like Mark Reardon and Bob Romanik weren't gonna hurt my feelings.

As events in Ferguson intensified, and there was no clear strategy or leadership, many became prone to saying and doing stupid shit, myself included. The benefit of hindsight is knowing a lot of what I did wasn't helpful. Yet, in a war of words and actions with opponents, things were often about achieving momentary victories.

The Hijacking

An uprising that began with young people, who statistically don't vote or pay attention to politics isn't one rooted in ideology or coherent political goals. That would change. Two worlds existed: Night Ferguson and Day Ferguson. Without Night Ferguson, and the attention their actions brought, there would've been no Ferguson. Night Ferguson was 90% or more young Black men from north county and other parts of the St. Louis metro. These young men received crucial support from young women, citizen journalists and live streamers, legal observers, first aid volunteers, and church groups. In a systematic matter, they'd be erased from the narrative. Those who would go onto shape the narrative were media savvy, had deep pockets, had connections, had a type, and as the late Darren Seals repeatedly pointed out, it wasn't heterosexual Black men. Indeed, a prominent activist of Day Ferguson wore a t-shirt reading “The Future is Female”. Which is kind of ironic for a movement that began with a dead young Black man. Of course, the future is female if young men are gunned down in the streets.

Day Ferguson came with agendas and they weren't all the same. It also came with a lot of money, which created tension among protesters. Who was getting paid and who wasn't? What particularly angered many local St. Louisans was the fact so much money was going to people who weren't even from St. Louis, and they were being interviewed in the press. The sugar daddies, foundations, and nonprofit industrial complex of the Big Left, took a look at St. Louisans protesting, and decided they didn't like us very much. Too working-class, too many Black men who'd frighten their donors, and not a clear political ideology.

I began to notice something above my north county hoosier pay grade was going on. As someone who follows international current affairs and American-Muslim politics, I saw that people were leaving the middle-east to influence events in Ferguson. A woman left the Arab Spring hot spots of Libya and Bahrain for Ferguson and a guy who was on the streets of Ferguson left to go to Malaysia to train locals on secular politics. National activists popped in to take selfies, Tweet, and fundraise in Ferguson. Grifters like Shaun King, who had absolutely no connection to Ferguson, raised massive amounts of cash in the name of Ferguson, and I don't know anyone local who saw any of it. The out of towners came at night too and these were mostly white anarchists, communists, and thrill-seekers coming to burn down Black neighborhoods in the name of solidarity with the Black community. They were responsible for most fires and would take their act on the road to Minnesota, DC, Seattle, Portland, and other cities in the years to come.

Despite thousands of St. Louisans taking to the streets, national media outlets became fixated on a man named DeRay Mckesson. Nothing against Deray, who I always found pleasant, but he's from Baltimore and lived in Minnesota. How was he the face of Ferguson?

The chant Hands Up Don't Shoot of the early days began to give way to Black Lives Matter on certain days. While the sentiment of BLM is more important than any insane mission statement, or the massive financial improprieties of the founders, and various grifting versions, it should be noted that the Black Lives Matter chant was brought to Ferguson by white people. The “White Allies” or “south side solidarity”.

The term “White Allies” is entirely misleading. The White Allies would go onto shape the Ferguson narrative, inventing motivations of intersectionality, and things such as Ferguson to Palestine (the real Ferguson-Palestinian connection being the friction between Palestinians and the Black community over the stores being owned and operated selling pork, liquor, and drug paraphernalia, and often with a lack of respect for the community). If you wanted to get paid, you had to talk in a manner the White Allies approved of, be willing to take direction, and be nonthreatening.

These White Allies wanted to select the leadership of the Black community. No longer would it be sufficient to be supported by the Black community- in order to be sufficiently pro-Black you had to be selected, educated, trained, staffed, funded (and more often than not married to or dating) white progressives. Ferguson was the testing ground; but the methods used went on to be employed by the Justice Dems and Democratic Socialists of America to create The Squad and elect progressive candidates. Every member of the Congressional Black Caucus was to be labeled a sellout, Uncle Tom, and Corporate Dem by white dudes and they/thems in Bushwick and Berkeley. The only exception being the candidates selected and backed by white progressives.

These methods of political engineering and control by white progressives weren't limited to the Black community. Indeed, before Ferguson, they were being used by the academic and foundation network to prop up and try to create a progressive movement and leadership for Muslims in America. This would be replicated in the Hispanic community (hint: it wasn't Puerto Ricans who gave us AOC and it wasn't Somalis who gave us Ilhan Omar. The people responsible look a lot like their husbands).

The fundamental problem with this sort of race play and political manipulation of communities you aren't part of is you don't have to deal with any negative consequences. You only get to brag about positive outcomes, and in the absence of that, virtue signal.

I don't remember anyone in Ferguson calling for abolishing all police or closing all prisons. These are ideas which basically had no life outside of nutjob academia, the nonprofit world, and small bands of weirdo rich white kids in some kind of generational rebellion against their upbringings. Yet, Ferguson brought these ideas into the public debate and took up value oxygen when more useful and realistic conversations could've been had.

The fact is we need better police, not an absence of police. We need a more holistic prison system that rehabilitates and educates when there is the possibility, and severely punishes when it's appropriate. The abolitionist bathes in the glory of their supposed virtue and moral superiority; but in reality shows they are coldhearted, callous, and indifferent to human suffering. St. Louis, and cities across America are full of violence and human suffering. Families mourning the murders of loved ones, children left without a parent, the elderly and immigrants targeted for robberies, women traumatized for life due to sexual assaults, children violated and robbed of their innocence. Where is the white progressive in these matters? The saviors? The abolitionists? If they're anywhere it's nowhere near those who are suffering. They are there to comfort the killer, the thief, the robber, the sexual predator, make sure they're free as soon as possible, and able to victimize the community again. They claim to support our hardworking immigrant communities yet turn a blind eye as their small businesses are targeted for theft, vandalism, and violence, and may in fact send their tormentors to be free to terrorize them again after a “Believer’s Bailout”. The next victim may be a bodega owner, or it could be another rideshare or taxi driver hustling to support family here and in their countries of origin having their brains blown out for a joy ride and twenty bucks.

This is pure narcissism, as few white progressives have to worry about being victims. When you visit Wade Funeral Home the purple hair/ septum piercing/ mask combo is in short supply and mourning Black families are plentiful. Or when you go to a mosque for a janazah prayer or a Catholic church for a funeral mass for the slain immigrant, the saviors of this world are nowhere to be found.

However, it's the numerous injustices committed in the criminal justice system, in our pay to play system, depriving defendants of their legal rights, which gave oxygen to the adoption of more extreme positions. Both sides have now doubled down on absurdities.

I can count on my hand the number of white progressives who reached out to me when my brother-in-law, nephew, and mother were murdered in three separate incidents since Ferguson. Their silence was noted.

Voting patterns would go onto reflect this difference. White progressives prioritizing their saviorism, virtue, and chosen leadership over things communities of color wanted. This often saw Black voters supporting more and better police funding and, in the name of being good white allies and fighting white supremacy, white progressives doing the opposite. A friend of mine underwent a workplace vote on whether they should continue to hire off-duty police officers for security. All Black employees voted in favor of the proposition. The young white progressives, virtuous, all-knowing, and all-wise, voted against the wishes of their Black colleagues in the name of fighting white supremacy. No one knows what's better for Black folks than white progressives!

Of course this wouldn't be limited to matters of policing. The odd political race play would take even more odd turns in 2020 (I'll get to that later) and during school board protests over books and classes related to teachings on gender and sexuality. This often put groups of masked white women protesting against white supremacy on one side and groups of Arab, South Asian, Hispanic, African immigrants, and Black Americans on the other side protesting against their purported saviors.

An editorial note; no one entered Ferguson free of life experience or general political sentiments. I never went to college, so I never read Marx. As an avid student of history, I'd read enough about communists to know it didn't work and led to mass death and human degradation. Therefore, I was always amused by the wealthy white kids I'd see when living in New York and DC talking about a class struggle and the workers. The first act of a class struggle would've been me deciding to rob them.

That doesn't mean I never had youthful idealism. To the contrary. I was just reading and influenced by different things. As a young man, I was influenced by the writings and politics of the Islamic Revivalist Movement (sahwa). I read books, listened to cassette tape lectures, attended conferences, and studied with men who were intent on the recreation of a transnational Muslim Empire governed by Islamic law and presided over by a Khalifah. This was something we really believed was achievable in our lifetime, and in this pursuit, many friends of mine ruined their lives chasing fantasies on foreign battlefields and wasting away in American prisons after 9-11. We were taught bad history, worse theology, and were hoodwinked and bamboozled, as Malcom would say (who also bamboozled many of us in the Alex Haley book). By the time Ferguson came around, I had grown away from my Islamist past and was barely holding onto my Islam, largely because I couldn’t envision a life for myself without it, having converted at the age of seventeen.

I didn't view Ferguson via a Muslim lense. I viewed it as a guy from north county. Yet, deposited in my mind, were the teachings of my Black American Muslim elders, and chief amongst those was a distrust of the White Left. That came in handy. While I was still trying to figure out where I was politically and where I wanted to be in terms of faith, hostile online and media sources were clear- I was a radical Islamist and dangerous Muslim. Which, in turn, effected some decisions I made and language I used, when I would've preferably opted to ignore matters of religion and identity in Ferguson.

Trump and The 2020 Sham

For the sake of time, and if anyone is still here, I'll fast forward to 2020. I've already previously stated, and Sarah Kendzior noted this in her book discussing St. Louis, that I believe Ferguson is partially responsible for electing Donald Trump as president. As in 1968, when Richard Nixon promised law and order, I knew conditions were ripe for a populist right-wing politician promising to restore law and order.

No one saw COVID-19 coming, the shutdowns, the summer of massive protests after the murder of George Floyd, and the crazy presidential election. Four years later, I think we're still all trying to make sense of it.

While I fully embraced vaccines, and I'm happy I'm vaxxed, and I supported shutdowns at the time, I think it's pretty clear they did more harm than good. Most harmed were our children- particularly poor and working-class kids, who fell behind due to the virtual learning sham, and never caught up. I was at the Dallas campaign event where Biden was endorsed by multiple presidential candidates, thus virtually sealing the nomination. The South Side Ballroom was so packed, that I could barely move or breath, and couldn't get in a position to take a good photo, despite being relatively close to Biden. The next week it was too dangerous to publicly campaign, Biden stayed at home, and we elected an elderly man who was not up to the job but has generally been good in office both for American workers and our international allies. Mainstream media, so eager to defeat Trump, played along. Oh, the viable Democratic alternative was another elderly gentleman who honeymooned in the Soviet Union. It was not a year of good choices, but Biden was the best in my estimation.

It was also a year of increasingly violent protests. In the name of Black Lives Matter, white leftists were occupying parts or Seattle, Portland, and marching through neighborhoods in Brooklyn and DC they'd recently gentrified and removed Black residents from, and chanting Black Lives Matter. The media told us it was dangerous to go to houses of worship, school, or work; but perfectly healthy to take to the streets and march with thousands of other people. Whatever these protests were about, they certainly weren't about Black lives. They did make way for the 2023-24 Gaza protests which have vacillated between calling for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, a reasonable position, to the outright support of the October 7th pogrom, calling for the elimination of the state of Israel, and outright antisemitism. 2020 was capped by January 6th of 2021, in which Donald Trump, the sitting President of the United States, instigated a mob that attacked our capitol, rather than accept the results of a democratic election.

2020 wasn't 2014. 2020 was a moment controlled by white progressives from day one, this time in a marriage of convenience with corporate America that helped funnel billions to nonprofit grifters, who have nothing to show for it, other than newfound personal wealth, but without Ferguson in 2014, there would've been no 2020. I personally initially greeted 2020 protests with enthusiasm only to show up, see very few Black people, and recognize this was all some weird white saviorism going on. These people needed church, not marches. Yet, they had a savior complex, and wanted to be the savior; but who is the main character in such a scenario?

The Aftermath: Where We Stand

Where are we today? A decade later, are we in a better place? North county is still in a state of serious decline and seems to be getting worse each year, north city is doing even worse, the population of both St. Louis City and County is declining, and many are opting for more prosperous communities, most notably Texas and Georgia suburbs (both reddish states). Violent crime spiked for a period, the decline in traffic enforcement has made driving and walking our streets far less safe and often deadly, and area police have essentially stopped policing. They don't want to be stars in a viral video or become a hashtag. For many cops, if they couldn't do things the old school way, they aren’t gonna do it at all. This has made our communities more dangerous, less livable for the most vulnerable, and places few people want to live in. This is a negative consequence from the lack of a strategic plan after Ferguson and failures on both the parts of law-enforcement and the community to hear one another.

The good news is that St. Louis now has better prosecutors (Wesley Bell and Gabe Gore) who are committed to public safety, holding those accountable who harm our community, and enacting diversion programs and other positive post-Ferguson reforms. St. Louis has a mayor in Tishaura Jones who wasn't created in a lab by white progressives; but is a genuine leader, reared and educated locally. Without Ferguson, I'm doubtful Mayor Jones would've been elected, nor a new generation of leaders such as Adam Layne and Marty Murray.

So, it must be recognized, that while there have been some unintended negative consequences from Ferguson, there are also positive developments. These aren't just political.

What inspires me isn't politics. I'm inspired by faith leaders in our community who took the Ferguson moment and began having serious conversations with their congregations. Fathers and mothers who began having difficult conversations at home with their sons and daughters. Teachers who began listening to their students. Old classmates who reached out to one another to have a beer and talk across the racial divide. Our increased racially diverse families and suburbs who are defying our political discourse on both sides as progressives have adopted a rigid and dogmatic Race Science and MAGA is doubling down on Nativism and Majoritarian racial grievances. By our faithful and intact immigrant families providing needed life to a region desperately in need.

I also believe that anyone who completely agrees with what they did when they were twenty years old, or even ten years ago, hasn’t grown and matured. I try to read over one-hundred books a year (please follow me on Goodreads and Fable), and I travel nationally and internationally. More than that, I talk to people from all walks of life, races, cultures, and religions. These range from Father Augustine Wetta (a Benedictine Monk at the St. Louis Abbey), Israeli American chef Ben Poremba, Columbia academic and New York tour guide Asad Dandia, Black American guys who journeyed through the Muslim experiences with me in the 90s like Will (Tariq) Nelson and Todd Barbee, Harsha in New York, longtime St. Louis friends, historians such as Michael Allen and Emma Prince, and people I randomly meet. I hear diverse analysis and opinions, because they all have different backgrounds and beliefs, and I benefit from them all. That’s not to mention random strangers I’m constantly striking conversations with.

I’m constantly reevaluating my beliefs and positions and am willing to admit when I’m wrong and I’ve been wrong about quite a lot. I’d like to think I’m wiser than I was ten years ago and learned from some mistakes.

We cannot forget that ten years later there are people who never left Ferguson. They still live there and strive to make it a better community. Many stood on opposite sides of the divide in 2014, but today have to live together. There are also those who came to Ferguson and never left. They stayed to help the homeless, attend community meetings, and help create a better community. They capture the beauty of the American democratic spirit. Both of these groups represent the real main characters of the Ferguson story. Not someone like me or any celebrity activist preaching the gospel of intersectionality.

Bonus

Wesley Bell Beats Cori Bush

I had planned to be out of town on August 6th, or perhaps visiting my dad on his birthday, but remained in St. Louis, and happily worked the polls for St. Louis Treasurer Adam Layne and Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore, while collecting signatures to put Mayor Tishaura Jones on the primary ballot next year. They all won, as did my friend Marty Joe Murray, who is probably the most genuine and caring person I’ve ever known to pursue a career in public service. Alfred Montgomery ousted Vernon Betts, Mike Kehoe got the GOP nomination for governor, and the social media-based campaign of Valentina Gomez went up in flames. All positive results, in my estimation.

Unlike many of my friends, I’m very happy that Wesley Bell will be the next member of Congress representing MO-1. Our region needs a professional, someone serious about being a legislator, someone who will work to bring jobs and resources to the region, and who will stand against nefarious international actors such as Vladimir Putin, Nicolas Maduro, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. We don’t need a viral Tweeter, social media celebrity, and someone who doesn’t show up for work. Cori Bush loves St. Louis, and many people in St. Louis love her, and I believe she has a good heart, but she was misled by bad actors such as the Justice Dems, antisemitic elements, and the Democratic Socialists of America, and that cost her. My analysis is that Bell, who was elected as a reformed-minded prosecutor due to a post-Ferguson sentiment, represents a sober way forward, and many of his detractors represent the worst of the Day Ferguson and Hijacker elements.