Kristi Noem seemed like the perfect vice presidential candidate for Donald Trump. Governor of South Dakota, gun lover, culture warrior, abortion opponent and pro-choice denier. In the last two questions, she has indeed adapted to Trump’s loyalty test to stay in the Maga heat, but when it comes to guns she is so extreme that she even caused a stir at an NRA convention when she bragged that her grandson on two years had received his first weapon.
Moreover, she is American-looking, an invariable requirement for women in the Trump sphere.
Now it is precisely the use of weapons which has caused her to fall out of favour, both with voters and in the Trump camp. After all, there is a limit. Not during weekly mass shootings. Not by threatening to let the National Guard shoot protesters and immigrants. Trump supporters don’t even care if he shoots someone on 5th Avenue, according to himself.
But don’t shoot your dog.
Destiny time for Georgia
In her new biography, “No going back”, keen hunter Kristi Noem tells of when she felt compelled to kill the family’s hunting dog, Cricket, a 14-month-old pointer puppy. Cricket was reportedly impossible to train, interfered with hunting and killed the neighbor’s hens when, in an unguarded moment, he managed to escape. She describes the puppy as wild with pure joy over the chicken massacre and concludes: I knew what I had to do. I hated that dog.
She brought Cricket with her to a gravel roof in the back garden, took out his hunting rifle and killed it. Then and there she realized that in the same stroke she could just as easily kill the farm’s manly and smelly goat that she also hated. More shots were needed, because the goat struggled after being shot. As she finishes her work and looks down at the two animal corpses, the school bus turns up in front of the farm and her ten-year-old daughter jumps out. Noem writes that the girl looks around and asks: “Where is Cricket?”
Kristi Noem included this family anecdote in her autobiography to show that she is tough enough to make uncomfortable choices and carry them out. The description of how ruthless she can be was an attempt to ingratiate herself with Trump and the Maga voters. There she missed again.
The puppy murder has created resurrection in the United States and has been condemned in unison from all quarters of the political landscape. Even commentators on Fox News went into a fistula over Noem’s animal cruelty. Trump’s cynical strategist Steve Bannon only smirked at how stupid Noem was for telling the story, and thought her chances of being the vice presidential candidate were now ruined, an analysis a laughing Don Jr. seemed to agree with. When Noem, in his defense, tried the classic “that’s how we do it in the country”, she received strong opposition from other farmers who didn’t want it at all that they executed puppies in time and out of time.
In a country as deeply divided as the United States, Kristi Noem miraculously managed to unite a people who for almost ten years have not agreed on anything in the world, not even on who is president of the country. But one thing the Americans can rally around, it turned out; love for their animals.
Dumping rubbish in the sea – charged
A whopping 66 percent of population in the United States owns a pet, of which 45 percent own a dog, according to the livestock statistics analyzed by Forbes Advisor. In the countryside, the number increases to over 70 per cent. More than half of the households consider the pet a member of the family, just like two-leggeds. The claim is supported by the fact that people spend more and more time and money on their pets. Not least, purchases of pet insurance have skyrocketed, which suggests that people do not take lightly having to euthanize their animals should they become ill or injured.
While the political discourse in the United States has become increasingly brutal and dehumanizing in recent years, the reactions to Cricket’s sad fate are distinctly humane and caring. Cricket was innocent. He could neither be attributed with evil motives nor suspected of wanting to exterminate the American countryside. He was simply following his instincts, and it was Noem’s responsibility to protect him and train him. If she was unable to take care of him, she could ask for help or relocate him.
For a few days waited man on the setback. Someone who wanted to support Noem and say, my God, calm down, it was just a little dog. Or even for Trump to signal that he liked a powerful woman with a gun and was now absolutely considering her for vice president. But that didn’t happen. Killing a puppy for behaving like a puppy, and then bragging about it afterwards, there finally crossed the line that many have doubted exists anymore.
Of course, one should not put too much stock in the fact that Americans have finally been able to find a common value. History has shown that the worst tyrants love their dogs, and even the darkest commentaries melt at the sight of a cat. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was unanimously condemned when he said that the family’s dog was placed in a cage on the roof of the car when they traveled to the cabin every summer, and the most suspicious thing about Donald Trump is still that he is the only president who has never had a pet. It is nevertheless striking that a dead dog can evoke so much cross-political care and a sense of justice that is otherwise woefully absent when it comes to living bipeds.
It is included to the story that Kristi Noem is of Norwegian descent, but there is perhaps nothing to brag about in this context.
