Lt. Gov. Kinder weighs in on Trump's win, his future plans

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder is optimistic about the future of the country, though the role he will play when his term ends remains unclear.

Kinder was the guest speaker at the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce First Friday Coffee event. There, he looked back at his time in office and forward to a future with Donald Trump at the presidential helm.

Sandwiching stories of his efforts to work across the aisle during his decades of service, Kinder speculated on what brought about the election of Donald Trump.

The election, he said, “overturned a lot of conventional wisdom and a lot of smug certainty people have about a lot of things.”

He said Trump failed to carry only three counties and the city of St. Louis in Missouri. Of those he did carry, Kinder said, only four had Trump with less than 60 percent of the vote.

“This is an electoral earthquake, the likes of which has not been seen in my lifetime,” Kinder said. “It was truly remarkable.”

Kinder discussed a loss of manufacturing jobs and auto plants in St. Louis during the Obama administration. He also talked about the Republican Party’s gain of the majority of the Missouri House and Senate before Barack Obama’s election.

Kinder said Trump’s victory was an improbable one, and a year ago, he was considered “a novelty.”

“I believe the earthquake that we call the election was in large part about Ferguson,” Kinder said, calling it a “largely avoidable” catastrophe that brought “unrestrained lawlessness” carried out by protesters who were bussed in and paid by “George Soros’s empire to cause trouble.”

He also said the election was about the economy and predicted Missouri will be a “right-to-work state by mid-March.”

Nationally, he said, the election was a call to unite what he feels the Democratic Party has been trying to divide.

“We had explicit appeals from the other party over the last eight years to divide Americans. ... You’re a member of a subgroup of victims. You’re a member of your racial, ethnic, religious, gender grouping.” The election, he said, was America’s call to overturn that.

As his presentation came to a close, Kinder was asked about his plans for the future. He is entertaining possibilities within the private sector but made it clear lobbying is not an option. But the public sector is not out of the question, either, he said.

“Turns out ... more than a few people at the top levels of the Trump administration are friends I have made over the last 20 years,” Kinder said. “So the possibility of joining the Trump administration on some level is also in the mix.”

bbrown@semissourian.com

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777 Main St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.