Missouri and the United States of Cannabis and Casinos

More adventures on Route 66 in Missouri

As I continued my road trip along Route 66 this summer, I high-tailed it out of Oklahoma into Missouri. I had never been to Missouri before.

To be truthful, the only place in Missouri I really wanted to see was Kansas City. But that wasn’t along my route, so I stopped in Lebanon, Missouri instead.

The interstate in Missouri was a bit more perky than that in Oklahoma and where I began to realize I was really driving through the United States of Cannabis and Casinos – the only things that really united the various states I’d seen so far.

Missouri Folks

Missouri folks seemed rather grumpy to be in Missouri, and who can blame them. Being grumpy is an international human right, and no one should be denied it.

Cannabis and casinos may take some of the sting out of grumpiness, but not enough to erase the general air of discontent. Although – constant ads for cannabis and casinos actually contribute to the general air of discontent. Who needs either if everything is going swimmingly?

Missouri has more reasons to be grumpy. Elections were coming up as I drove through, and the state’s political class is full of election deniers. Believing in stolen elections naturally makes people grumpy. Believing that some elections aren’t ‘real’ makes all subsequent elections exercises in grumpiness, even beyond the general grumpiness that attends almost all American elections.

But it’s worse than that in Missouri. The Missouri attempt at gerrymandering didn’t go quite as smoothly as some other state attempts did. They held primaries under one set of districts, and then the Supreme Court told them to stop using their 2025 map and use their 2022 map instead. It would take a whole lot of recreational cannabis to ungrumpify that mess.

At any rate, SCOTUS pissed off Trump and the state’s GOP, which would have been more noteworthy, except that both are always pissed off anyway. So it’s not the pissed-off-ness that’s noteworthy, it’s the confusion and chaos.

Missouri Voters Not Happy with Their Politicians

Said confusion and chaos would annoy to a more patient state than Missouri. Missouri, of course, calls itself the Show Me State. When you are called the ‘show me’ state, you’re not giving people the impression that patience is your strong suit.

Even more irritating for Missourians, Missouri is a red state but prominent red politicians like Trump and Governor Kehoe are underwater in the polls. There are so few polled Missourians who really like their governor that those who did ‘strongly approve’ of him probably got him mixed up with someone else.

Meanwhile, Missourians may have started with high hopes for Trump, but they’ve spent 2026 getting more and more miserable and those hopes have now been more or less dashed. Polled Missourians are overwhelmingly worried about being able to afford gasoline, groceries, healthcare and their utilities.

Can I tell all this from driving down the highways, staying at a motel, and checking out the gas stations and billboards? Of course not.

All I can tell is that the vibe is gritty. And grimy. Grumpy. Maybe even kind of fed up.

Whatever winning might look like for Missouri consumers, it doesn’t look like this. And neither cannabis nor casinos can fix that.

Thanks for reading Get Pretty Fed Up!

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