Far-Right MO Governor Kehoe Activates National Guard & Declares State of Emergency in Attempt to Intimidate Upcoming Human Rights Protests
Two days after Kansas City’s thousand-strong march lit the Midwest fuse, Missouri’s governor declared a “State of Emergency,” green-lighting troops, armored vehicles, and a multi-agency surveillance dragnet. Human-rights protectors say the order will not cool the streets—it only proves the fight is urgent and righteous. The post Far-Right MO Governor Kehoe Activates National Guard & Declares State of Emergency in Attempt to Intimidate Upcoming Human Rights Protests appeared first on The Kansas City Defender.
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JEFFERSON CITY, MO – Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe just signed Executive Order 25-25, activating the National Guard, assembling a multi-agency repression force with Highway Patrol and the Department of Public Safety, and authorizing the use of war-grade equipment—all under the guise of responding to “civil unrest.”
What that actually means is this: the state is rolling out troops and war gear before a single weekend chant has even hit the air, hoping to pre-empt the Shut Down ICE and No Kings actions that continue to mushroom across the United States, and are planned for this weekend in Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbia, and small-town Missouri.
Few Resources for Black People in St. Louis After a Catastrophic Tornado. But Ready to Spend Millions on Military Warfare on our Own Citizens
The order enables Kehoe to conduct:
- Pre-crime repression. No credible threat to life or property has been reported. Tuesday’s KC march halted traffic but recorded zero arrests or injuries—yet the governor is treating human-rights defense like a natural disaster.
- Militarized escalation on demand. The order hands the Adjutant General a blank check for armored vehicles, chemical weapons and “crowd-control” weapons, and airborne surveillance. In plain English: the state just legalized war tech against its own residents.
- From storms to dissent. While people in St. Louis continue to struggle for survival, with many sleeping in tents outside their homes with little access to food, Kehoe has has deployed those same soldiers who could be helping with ongoing disaster relief to instead suppress protests.
Why It Won’t Work
Movement memory. Missouri’s streets have seen this playbook before—Ferguson 2014, George Floyd 2020. Each deployment only broadened public outrage and sharpened organizing discipline. There’s also an emerging decentralized resolve. Human-rights protectors are adapting on the fly: fluid routes, rapid info-sharing, and embedded medics make heavy weaponry look clumsy and overblown.
It also produces what the civil rights movement was aware of, a legitimacy gap. When an executive mobilizes soldiers against teenagers with handmade signs, the moral optics write themselves.
Stay Grounded, Not Fearful
- Know your rights: You can film troops and police. Refuse consent to searches. Ask, “Am I free to go?”
- Be mutually protective: Travel in groups, keep water and basic first-aid on hand, share verified updates (Signal, encrypted messages).
- Document everything, but not attendee’s faces: Video and eyewitness accounts are shields against state lies and future prosecutions of abuse. Just make sure not to show attendee’s faces, as these are sucked into government surveillance algorithms for facial detection.
Missouri’s power holders are bracing for a summer of dissent. That alone is proof of the movement’s strength. The Guard may roll in, but the people are already here—and they’re not leaving.
The post Far-Right MO Governor Kehoe Activates National Guard & Declares State of Emergency in Attempt to Intimidate Upcoming Human Rights Protests appeared first on The Kansas City Defender.
