South Dakota’s governor gets the sadism of Trump supporters, but screws up by saying the quiet parts out loud
Squint hard enough and perhaps one can see how Gov. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., thought it was a winning political move to brag about murdering a puppy. It’s the same trolling strategy used by MAGA Republicans like Donald Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas: Say something extremely evil, stupid, or both. Draw the inevitable liberal outrage or mockery. Play the victim, claiming that it’s more proof the “elites” hate the common sense working folk of MAGA. Then sit back and watch the dollars and followers roll in.
For Noem, however, her tale of shooting her dog Cricket is not working out quite as planned. Sure, she got the predictable outrage and disgust from Democrats. But she also seems to have alienated the very Trump supporters she was trying to impress with her bloodthirsty tale. Fox News let their displeasure be known by doing a round-up story of conservative social media influencers denouncing Noem, often with quite harsh language. “Did she just intentionally end her career?” asked trollish podcaster Tim Poole. Other high-profile right-wingers blasted Noem as an “Absolute Psycho” and called for her to be “criminally charged for animal abuse.” Even the notorious right-wing troll Catturd — who has 2.4 million Twitter followers because he acts as vile as his name suggests — drew a line at killing your child’s beloved pet.
Noem, however, still seems to think she can win over Republican voters by doubling and tripling down on her tale of executing a 14-month-old Wirehaired Pointer because it got confused and killed some chickens, instead of the pheasants she was training it to hunt. On Friday, she bragged about “the media gasping” at her “politically INcorrect” dog murder while hawking her new book. By Sunday she seemed to grasp that even Republicans were grossed out. She released a longer statement, trying to recast her choice as “hard and painful,” claiming, “I have never passed on my responsibilities to anyone else to handle.”
I’m pleased that she’s experiencing the fallout from all this, but whatever logic she used to calculate that political risk is baffling.
Four John Wick movies have grossed over a billion dollars on the conceit that harming a dog is a legitimate emotional catalyst for someone to kill 450 people.
Apparently the story was known locally in south dakota political circles, so there is conjecture this is her trying to get out ahead of it if she was nominated.