One-way ticket for VP hopeful
All sides united in their revulsion at Republican governor who admitted shooting her own puppy dead
WHILE Donald Trump is off the campaign trail listening to porn star Stormy Daniels give evidence in his hush money criminal trial, much attention has turned to who he will pick as his election running mate.
The businessman fed his former Vice President, Mike Pence, to the MAGA mob’s raging wolves following his defeat in 2020, so now it’s open season to see who will become his number two ahead of the November election.
The list of qualities the election result denier will be looking for is long: mastery of the art of ego massage, a willingness to sacrifice dignity for loyalty, perfect proficiency in alternative facts, a thick skin with a Teflon coating, experience in walking back statements and unquestioning devotion to the Cult of Trump.
Someone who fits the bill perfectly is South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.
This week, Noem began promoting her memoir, touting her VP credentials while massaging her potential boss’s colossal ego.
“This is really a book that talks about how we’re not going back,” she said. “We’re not going back to the days before Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump broke politics. And I think that’s a good thing.”
Noem is undoubtedly right about his breaking politics, but perhaps not in the way she meant.
Her game attempt to proceed with a media tour promoting her book despite alleged inaccuracies, and a story about killing her pet dog is a testament to her Trumpian impulse to push on through while avoiding facts.
Already Noem has sparked huge backlash after telling in her book how she shot dead her 14-monthold puppy.
I was among the millions of people sickened on learning she executed her pooch, Cricket, in a gravel pit, apparently for being puppy-like.
She describes shooting dead the pup after he killed a neighbour’s chickens.
She also boasts how she dragged her pet goat to the killing field and shot it simply for being rambunctious and “rancid.” Endearing right?
Then there is the meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un she claims to have had, as well as cancelling on French President Emmanuel Macron and having a threatening conversation with former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.
Both Macron and Haley denied such things ever happened. Kim Jong Un could not be reached.
Through it all, Noem and her office have offered shifting accounts. Her stories are all apparently intended to show her guts, grit and gunplay as she auditions to be Trump’s running mate, but instead, it has had the rare effect of bringing Americans of all political persuasions together – in revulsion at her.
So, while old Donnie has been forced to listen to adult actress Daniels telling jurors how he likened her to his daughter before they allegedly became intimate, Noem has done something no one else has.
She has managed to unify the left and right, the woke and Q-anon, the far right and Antifa, unanimously around the proposition that she is someone not worthy of the White House.
Noem may have killed her dog, but it seems that in her attempt to gain the love of Trump she may have shot dead her own political career too.
Good riddance.