Kristi Noem shooting that dog reflects a larger cultural problem on the Right

I think most people are approaching this from the wrong direction

South Dakota Governor and former Vice Presidential contender Kristi Noem has had a very bad week. Media outlets obtained early copies of her new book and discovered passages that sparked outrage across the globe.

The first controversy involved an apparently untrainable 14-month-old hunting dog. Not only did the dog ruin a few hunts, but it also attacked and killed several farm animals and even bit Noem when Noem tried to restrain it.

The second incident involved a troublesome male goat, which was apparently foul-smelling and frequently attacked her children. In her book, Noem matter-of-factly described taking both animals out to a nearby gravel pit and shooting them dead.

I don’t like moralizing. My grandparents owned a dog and I can’t imagine shooting one unless it was actively attacking me or someone else. I live on a farm now and all the goats are really nice to me, though in fairness I don’t actually work on the farm (my real job is doing marketing for a tech company) and my only real interaction with goats is occasionally feeding or playing with them. The thought of killing a goat rubs me the wrong way. I don’t even like setting mouse traps out here.

That said, I really just don’t care about these incidents. Some dog bites you after having long-running behavior problems? I understand not wanting it running around your kids. You certainly won’t be able trust it again. A goat is creating problems and is just plain mean? I wouldn’t shoot it but, hey, I’m some remote worker on a hobby farm in New England. I’m not a rancher out West. At the end of the day, it’s a dog; it’s a goat. The world turns on. People would probably not care very much if it was just some rancher describing these incident.

But it’s not just some rancher describing these incidents, it’s South Dakota Governor and former Vice Presidential contender Kristi Noem describing them. People hate Kristi Noem for a lot of reasons: her views on abortion, her support of Trump, the fact that she’s a Republican or a hot woman or whatever. If you’re any kind of major figure, people are going to hate you for a lot of reasons, and when you do something like this you can almost guarantee that they’re going to jump on it for reasons that are both fair and very unfair.

The problem is, Noem seemed to know this ahead of time. In fact, it’s almost as if she wanted this reaction. She wrote “I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here.” After the story went viral, she added “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm. Sadly, we just had to put down three horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.” She further added that “[Her book contained] more real, honest and politically incorrect stories that’ll have the media gasping.”

But it’s not just the media gasping here. Most people do not shoot dogs or goats and they can’t really imagine a circumstance where that would be appropriate. It’s just not part of their lives. My guess is that less than 1% of the population has ever shot a dog or a goat or knows someone who has shot either of those things. It is, for lack of a better term, weird.

It might be normal to Kristi Noem, though. She obviously views these things casually. They’re part of her life on a farm. The most charitable read is that, by writing about these incidents in her book, she wanted to help people understand what life on a farm was like and how that reflected her leadership style: She wasn’t afraid of the realities of the farm life or to get her hands dirty, engaging in unpleasant but necessary work.

I don’t think the most charitable read is accurate, though. I think she just wanted to “start a conversation” about herself. It’s weird. She’s drawing attention to herself doing something weird. It doesn’t take a genius to predict that if a politician writes about shooting a dog it’s going to attract controversy. She probably thought she could “win” the ensuing argument by pointing out that that sort of thing is commonplace on farms and that these decisions are often ones that farmers have to make.

That’s all true. I genuinely don’t care about her shooting those farm animals. That’s probably controversial or callous for me to say, I wouldn’t say it in casual conversation with someone in real life, but yeah, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Most people are making a fuss about it because they already don’t like Noem for this or that reason.

Even though Noem would probably “win” the argument about why it was necessary or acceptable or even just irrelevant that she killed those farm animals, she clearly lost the larger argument about whether or not Kristi Noem should be Vice President. Her actions are just too weird and for some reason she felt compelled make them a topic of public discussion.

Having considered this over breakfast, I think I understand what the root of this problem is. There was a very funny quote from a black communist politician in South Africa I saw a while back that I can’t find anymore. He stated (roughly) that white farmers should not complain that they were being systemically targeted for murder despite their essential role in South African society because most people got their food from grocery stores rather than farms.

I think this phenomenon is common in America today. You see stories all the time that reflect a basic lack of understanding in how the world and even our bodies work. I genuinely, 100%, believe that within the next decade, the belief that you can regrow lost limbs will be commonplace among adults.

This fundamental lack of understanding that you see everywhere now has Republicans on the defensive. People are just plain “wrong” about a lot of stuff, and many (mistakenly) believe that you can correct this by simply explaining why they’re wrong. They feel compelled to justify normal life and normal behavior. “Why shouldn’t we have unlimited immigration?” is not a conversation that most societies have to have, and yet here we are.

The idea that you can “pause” puberty is insane on its face. Children who have undergone these procedures suffer life-altering negative consequences. Their bones are permanently weakened. Their organs will be damaged forever. Parts get removed that you can’t put back. This is happening to young people who have their whole lives ahead of them, it’s a tragedy. This sort of unethical procedure, which likely would have triggered criminal prosecution in the past, is protected by the federal government today. There are tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of people in America today who believe that these procedures are not only effective but that opposition to them is some kind of deep moral failing.

It’s insane, and yet many of the people who believe these things are *successful* in a way that I’m not: I don’t have a wife. I don’t have kids. I don’t have any kind of graduate or professional education. I don’t own a house, I live at my brother’s place in the sticks. I’m kind of short and not naturally athletic. I have lots of views that are considered low status. I do (or at least used to) do cool stuff, but I can’t really talk about it in real life outside of the very narrow group of people I trust.

I’m content with my life. I’m happy with the place I’ve ended up and what I’ve been able to do in the time I’ve been given. But, a lot of Republicans seem fundamentally insecure with this arrangement. Our society affords higher “status” to people who adopt insane and retarded views and who, through social pressure, gradually become more insane and retarded over time. Biden really was a moderate (to the extent those ever existed) back in the day. Now, he’s soberly nodding along as a mother reveals that she’s sterilized her child as part of the fad of the month. American life increasingly resembles that of an insane asylum being run by the inmates.

When you tell someone that they’re insane or retarded, labels that are low status, they, quite reasonably, ask “Well, who are you? Who are you to tell me that I’m low status?” This “Who are you?” brings us back to Kristi Noem. Noem is demonstrably successful: She’s wealthy, she has a lot of kids, she’s very beautiful, she’s even governor of a whole state! And yet, “high status” people treat her with fundamental disrespect.

They call her a moron, a bimbo, an evil person. Noem is probably none of these things. The overwhelming majority of her critics could not do what she does. Someone with an Ivy League degree who believes that you can halt puberty without harming a child or that “systemic racism” is responsible for disparities in crime rates and IQ test scores that are consistent across geographic and political boundaries is more of a bumpkin, is far more ignorant, provincial, and susceptible to magical thinking, than a person who just has strong pro-life views or likes Trump a lot.

There’s a discrepancy here, and people like Noem feel the need to argue their way out of it. “You are the ignorant one. You are the person who doesn’t understand. You are the insane retard.” Noem tells an inflammatory story, a story that’s not politically correct, because she knows that it will make people angry and expose their stupid beliefs. “Goats get slaughtered every day. Who gives a shit? A dog bit you after killing a bunch of animals? Why take the risk of letting it run around afterwards? Grow up.”

Or at least that’s how the conversation went in her head. The problem is, by being intentionally provocative, Noem comes off as artificial and insecure. “I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here.” That’s right, Kristi Noem, you are a politician. Why are you talking about shooting dogs? If someone’s going to become Vice President, I don’t want them to be a dog-killing tough-talking female rancher on the Yellowstone TV show, I want them to be a good politician. I want them to have respect for their role and their place in the universe. I want them to act like a serious person, and a serious person doesn’t have anything to prove.

By bringing up this taboo stuff in a place where it’s clearly inappropriate, Noem is, consciously or unconsciously, putting on an act. She wants to have a discussion about herself rather than what she does or will do in her role. She wants to argue with people, and when someone just wants to argue more often than not it’s just annoying. It’s not how a powerful or secure person behaves.

Why does Kristi Noem even have a book? Nothing Kristi Noem has ever said or done has led me to believe she wants to write a book or that a book she’d write would be interesting or meaningful. She almost certainly didn’t write the book that’s at the center of this controversy. There is a lucrative industry of ghostwriters who exist only to shovel out these political titles, books that are immediately forgotten if people bother to read them at all. It’s all artificial.

Many conservatives are unable to simply “exist.” They’re trying to fit into a role, often with cartoonish results. This is the root of the Yellowstone phenomenon. People adopt a persona to provide their lives with more definition and the results are jarring.

You see this problem everywhere in conservative culture. Many people today don’t have worldviews or personalities, they have “bits.” Kristi Noem was trying to signal that she was some tough farmer woman. That was going to be her bit and what people were supposed to think about when they heard her name. Regardless of whether or not that bit was true to life, the way she was signaling it (talking about shooting a dog) was simply not appropriate for someone in her position. It was in very bad taste.

Much has been written about the appeal of President Trump. He’s brash. He’s vulgar. He says things that were considered off-limits in polite society. These are certainly aspects of his appeal, but Republicans are walking themselves into a dead end when they try to merely identify as being brash, vulgar, or willing to discuss taboo topics. They’re building a circus and are acting surprised when people think they’re clowns.

Above all else, Trump has good taste. A person doesn’t become as successful in media and real estate as Trump is without having a good aesthetic instinct and being very sensitive to how his words and actions will be perceived by everyone. Trump builds places that people want to go to. Trump is excellent at reading the room. It’s incredible to watch him work a crowd. He has such a flair for words that his speech patterns appear to be shifting how people use the English language in general.

When Trump says something, it seems like he genuinely believes it. Much of Trump’s early victories in the 2016 stemmed from him putting into words certain unpleasant truths of American life: The Iraq War was a mistake. Many places don’t feel like America any more due to immigration.

He was also willing to break the veil and insult people who everyone hated. Journalists aren’t respectable people, they’re liars with an agenda. Longtime government bureaucrats? Many of those people are incompetent and corrupt. They’re not stalwart G-Men, they’re cat lady hypocrites who are running the country into the ground. Trump was willing to give people the respect they deserved, which was none.

Trump was also hyper-conscious of his position. Being a president means certain things. Trump is not a character. Trump doesn’t have a bit, he has a role: He’s the big boss. He understands the gravity of his role. I think we’ll all remember his incredible response to learning of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. He didn’t really say anything that meaningful, but it immediately became an eternal moment. It’s these instincts that make Trump a man of history. Whatever the outcome of this period in history, it will undoubtedly referred to as the “Trump era.”

Trump, for all his missteps, is always Trump. He is a high IQ sperg who wants to stop the world from killing itself. He has (and perhaps is) a vision for how the country should be, and it’s a beautiful vision. All of Trump’s eccentricities and his inability to drop frame establish him in the minds of people as a leader, even though he says things that a leader isn’t “supposed” to say.

It’s Trump’s good taste and earnestness that allows him to “seduce” the world. Seduction is a great metaphor the process: Trump engages with people at a human level. He’s funny and surprising. He makes people feel special and understood. His vision is optimistic, he allows people to feel like they have a future when times are bad. This is how Trump is able to inspire such fanatical loyalty in his supporters.

Even though Kristi Noem has many of the same views of Donald Trump, the effect of her talking about controversial or taboo stuff is very different. For starters, she’s not particularly charismatic. She doesn’t seem genuine. Her remarks seem rehearsed. That’s fine, I’m not a good public speaker either, but, if you’re going to talk about taboo stuff that’s something you kind of have to “earn.” People don’t want to feel like you’re putting on a performance for them or, worse, being argumentative.

I know that Noem really does own a ranch and work on it, but her role as the governor of South Dakota defines her more than her ranch whether she likes it or not. This woman has been a politician for more than a decade now, I’m never going to believe that she is a rustic salt of the Earth rancher who not only kills dogs but is going to naturally bring it up in her political book that she decided to write because she had so much important stuff to say. Noem had to have known that this story in the book would generate controversy. That’s probably the only reason the book exists: to create publicity and public discussion for herself.

Trump seems to create publicity and public discussion for himself effortlessly. I know it’s not effortless, and that Trump actually thinks very hard about everything he does, but it seems effortless from a distance. It is this effortlessness that allows Trump to go places that normal politicians, even if they have many of the same views, cannot. Think about the distinction between a costume and a uniform: although a costume and a uniform might have many similar features, it is the wearer’s role and how they carry themselves that makes the difference.

Kristi Noem cannot simply exist. She wants to tell you about shooting her dog. She’s not a career politician who you might agree or disagree with or like or dislike personally, she’s the dogkiller. If people think it’s weird that she shot a dog (or at least that she talked about shooting a dog), she wants to have an argument about it and everyone can take sides. This is annoying and abrasive. If this happened all the time in a social scene you were part of, you’d probably leave. It’s just in bad taste.

This is a larger problem on the American Right. People are unable to simply exist. I think that the root of this issue is a shift from a hobby-focused culture (health, guns, girls, science, movies, whatever) to a personality-focused culture (streamer/podcast drama) as IQs decline. Although in a hobby-focused culture someone will enhance their own life and pursue their own interests, in a personality-focused culture they are ultimately living through someone else.

In the case of Noem, she was trying to present an image other people could live through. In a hobby-focused culture a topic of discussion would be whether or not you like this or that thing and what you like or dislike about it. In a personality-focused culture the topic of discussion is whether you agree or disagree with Kristi Noem, the protagonist.

Trump is a figure who is “for the people but not of them.” His life is pretty unrelatable to most of us, and yet people like him because he seems to be an organic and real person. He’s interested in things besides himself and usually other people are interested in those things as well. People are drawn into his orbit by powerful forces.

The big downfall of attempts to create a new “rightwing culture,” separate from the mainstream liberal ones, is that it seems like many people only want to talk about their bits or their feuds as a way to talk about themselves. Many theorize about the need for a new culture when really they’re just saying that they should be at the top of the social ladder and not someone else.

This is not how culture is made in the real world. This is not how real-life social scenes operate. It is always jarring when someone is trying too hard. Liberals make hay out of this, correctly pointing out the artificiality and lack of social fluency common in rightwing spaces (though of course ignoring the far worse problems affecting their spaces). Kristi Noem is a governor, a career politician, not an author or some folksy rancher. She needs to act the part and stop saying weird shit.

The only way to solve this problem is to unclench the fist. In general people are better off talking about themselves as little as possible and merely existing. I really do try to avoid talking about myself. I hope that the things I talk about become your views/interests/whatever (colored by your perspective) as opposed to merely an extension of my own. Although I’m sure we’d like each other very much, at the end of the day I have no idea who you are and you have no idea who I am. I’m not really here.

This essay has gone on long enough. I think the Noem debacle is a perfect example of the larger cultural decline in rightwing spaces. As much as people mock the focus on respectability from liberals (who aren’t respectable at all), rightwingers really are losing something when they ham it up like they do all the time now. They’re doing a crude imitation of Trump that misses the core appeal of the Trump phenomenon.

The result of this tacky circus is apocalyptic polling with groups you need to persuade and can persuade, like college-educated whites, which would staff any bureaucracy or other institution required to turn the country around. Republicans don’t want to be in the situation where they’re left with a shrinking circle of excitable people bouncing between fads. Long term constructive action will be impossible; talented people who could help will steer clear. Trump is respectable. Trump is a serious man. Trump has good taste and can read a room. People should follow his lead.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work and gain access to all the podcast episodes on this Substack. Every new subscriber makes a real difference in my life.