Kristi Noem is a Monster. Democrats are Letting Her (and Republicans) Off the Hook.

The unsettling saga of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and her dog Cricket is more than a controversy; it's a reflection of character that reveals volumes about our political climate. Wrestling with the emotional burden of having to say goodbye to my own pets, I can't help but draw a line in the sand between what's humane and Governor Noem's harrowing actions, as divulged in her upcoming book. This episode is a clarion call to the Democrats—it's time to harness these moments, turning them into indelible marks upon the moral canvas of our political battlefield. Here, not only do I castigate the missed chances in political maneuvering, but I also lay bare the necessity for narratives that strike a chord with the electorate, much like Republicans have mastered with their deceptively simple yet impactful messages.

Navigating the murky waters of political scandals, I illustrate the stark disparity in accountability that skews along party lines, imagining how the media would react if the roles were reversed. A personal reflection amplifies the urgency of changing tack, imploring the Democratic Party to wield narrative power and emotional resonance, just as perceptions of the economy often eclipse the factual landscape. I connect the dots between how we treat our animals and our core human values, cautioning against the callousness that culminated in the Capitol riot. It's not just about winning elections; it's about preventing those with a penchant for violence and dehumanization from steering our country's course. This episode isn't merely a recount of events; it's a strategic playbook and a heartfelt plea for political engagement at its most critical.

Learn more about the Keystone Reckoning Project at www.keystonereckoning.com

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Kristi Noem Controversy
• 13:00 Weaponizing Political Narratives for Electoral Success
• 23:48 Value Statements and Political Messaging

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Kristi Noem is a monster. The Democrats are about to let her and the Republican Party off the hook for it. Good morning, welcome to the Keystone Reckoning podcast. I'm your host, jesse White. It is Tuesday, april 30th 2024. And I am coming in hot today for several reasons.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Obviously, we're talking about South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and the widely circulated story from her upcoming book about how she put her dog Cricket in a pit and shot it, and we're not going to go through all the details of that. They're everywhere. You can look at it on your own, or I'm sure, if you're listening to this podcast, you've certainly seen the story by now. So let's get into this. First of all, there's no denying Kristi Noem is an absolute monster. That is just a horrific thing. As someone who has owned and had to put down two dogs, one as recently as a few months ago, I can say that, other than the day my grandmother died, the day I had to put my two dogs down were maybe two of the very worst days of my entire life because of what it did to me, what it did to my family, because the dogs were members of our family and no, I'm not trying to make them out to be like they were my children or anything like that. We're not those people, but they were an indelible part of our lives. I just realized I just said indelible. My one dog's name was Delano. I was a Freudian slip there. So as a dog owner, as a human being, it's just abhorrent. Okay, we've all got that out of the way. So now the question is what comes next, and this is where the Democrats absolutely must make sure that there is a price to be paid for this politically, and let me explain what I mean. And then let's look at why it isn't happening. So we're now seeing, because of what Noem has done has been so universally criticized, which I don't know what she was possibly thinking. Apparently, the story has been going around South Dakota for quite a while. She was in the running to be vetted as one of Trump's VP candidates. I think she was probably in the top couple of choices and maybe she knew that this was going to come out and wanted to get out ahead of it. Even still, that is, I don't know my thought. If I had to choose between being Trump's VP and having this hanging around my neck publicly and not being Trump's VP and no one knowing about it. I think I'd take the latter for many reasons, but it goes to the point.

Speaker 1: 3:01

This wasn't so much of a story of a bad person making a bad decision. This is a story of character, of personal character. What kind of person this is? Because this is that is, a sociopath, someone that feels no empathy, right? There's also another story about her killing goats.

Speaker 1: 3:26

But the fact that she could do it and then talk about it and then put it in print and then now go on social media and try to defend it. And she actually said that one of the quotes was that cricket was the picture of pure joy. Well, if he was the picture of pure joy, you know what I do to something in my life that's not a picture of pure joy. I don't put it in a gravel pit and put a bullet in it. Maybe that's just me, but that is the mark of a sociopath.

Speaker 1: 3:51

And it is a telling indicator that this person, who has been the same person, right, just because no one knew this story publicly doesn't mean she was, you know, she wasn't this person. This didn't happen yesterday. That she was the sexy and I mean that not in a physical, because she's a female way, because she was this kind of you know, sarah Palin-esque. You know Sarah Palin for the, you know, for the new era, for the MAGA era or whatever you want to say. But she was this, you know this front runner that was going to put some energy into it and help propel the ticket for Trump, help, obviously, with women voters, which they see to be a huge you know, women voters are the election in this November. So she was a front runner, she was the next big thing. This is who she had been all along. The Democrats must capitalize on that, and by capitalize on it, I mean from a messaging point of view.

Speaker 1: 4:51

And here's the thing you don't need to sensationalize this one. You don't need to stretch it. You don't need to go above and beyond to try to make it out to something that it's not. It's her own damn words. It is her own words. This is as simple as it gets. This story came out over the weekend or the end of last week. How in the world we did not wake up Monday morning to ads from every progressive group on the planet using this incident, talking about it, using her own words, juxtaposed against quotes that Trump has said about her being wonderful, of which there's a million of them, and using it to make the very clear point that there is the values of these people cannot be reconciled. How in the world did that not happen? I don't know. I don't know, because here's what I do know, and I've said it before. I'll be saying it nonstop, forever until it becomes not true.

Speaker 1: 5:58

Republicans are so good at these simple short messages. They're bumper sticker campaigning and in a lot of ways, they take non sequiturs and then find a way to tie them back to the candidate or the campaign or not. Sometimes it's about changing the narrative right. Look at what they're doing right now Trump, first president ever to be sitting through a criminal trial, the everything that goes with it, the way he's conducted himself falling asleep, acting like an idiot outside the courthouse, probably committing contempt of the gag order left, right and center Bad narrative right. In any other era that would be a disqualifying narrative for a presidential candidate, for any candidate. But now the Republicans and their operation have managed to. First of all, because part of the problem is it's become normalized with Trump right. That's a problem that it's just really hard to deal with. It's been a problem for years, but they've been able. Now.

Speaker 1: 6:58

I turned on. I was at the gym this morning. I turned on. I look at the news. All it is campus protesters. That's a whole other issue for a whole other day. I'm not saying it's the campus protester bad thing. I want to be very clear about that. But they are taking something out there. They're taking something out there, twisting it to their own narrative and it's it's the Occupy argument all over again, right? A bunch of dirty kids living in their parents' basements or living in dorms at these liberal arts colleges, being destructive and doing whatever, cherry picking the narrative. They're forming a narrative. They're forming a narrative. They're making it out to be something that will stick with voters because they're going to see it again between now and November.

Speaker 1: 7:36

I just read an article this morning that there's a Trump aligned group that is running wildly bigoted ads in black markets, including here in Pennsylvania, to try to convince black voters that Joe Biden is responsible for M13, bringing fentanyl across the border and everything under the planet. They're crafting a narrative. It doesn't have to be accurate In this case. It's wildly inaccurate. It's totally wrong. But this is where the fury really rises. This is the thing that makes me sick to my stomach is that as Democrats, nationally, organizationally, individually this is where our own arrogance and our own hubris and our own, quite frankly, disconnect allows the Republicans to be able to do this. We look at them and it was in all the articles this morning and everything I read as I'm eating breakfast in the morning. I read all the things and it's a lot of tongue in cheek, right? Not that anybody is making light of the Kristi Noem thing I want to be clear about that but they're making these kind of sideways comments. They're taking the quick and easy little dig, right.

Speaker 1: 8:50

There's a thing now there's a lot of our state reps and people like that are like you know, post a picture of your dog, not in a gravel pit. I'll start. That's adorable, right? Okay? Ha ha ha. Congratulations. You posted on Twitter. You've done your bit for democracy for the day. Get real. Get real, because the people that you need to talk to, that we need to talk to, they're not following you on Twitter. They're at the gym where Fox News is playing in the background. They're at work. They're at well, I guess not in school.

Speaker 1: 9:21

I would hope school age kids aren't voting, but you know what I mean. They're out in the world and we get into this echo chamber where we get self-righteous. We get self-righteous and we think that by making a little sideways comment or taking the lowest hanging fruit and just assuming that the voters are going to get it right. That's one of the biggest criticisms I have of Democrats from a messaging point of view is we assume that everybody's paying attention, everybody shares our worldview and that they're going to be able to read the context of what we're trying to say, whereas Republicans literally beat you over the head with it. And then Democrats get all frustrated about why our message doesn't stick compared to theirs, because they're better at telling it, they're better at reinforcing it, because we often are so obsessed with being right that we forget that we have to win.

Speaker 1: 10:13

You can't govern if you don't win. This election should not even be remotely close. How, how is this election close? I have a degree in political science. If you would have told me when I was in college here's a case study of a random election knowledge. Here's a case study of a random election and you, in a random United States election 25 years from now, analyze it and tell me what's going to happen. My response my little blue book. I don't even know if they still use blue books. My little blue book would be dramatically different than the reality we're living right now, and we can be as mad as we want and frustrated and self-righteous as we want at the Republicans, but at the end of the day, they want to win. We want to be right.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Well, what has that gotten us? Yes, we got Joe Biden elected. Yes, we got a slim majority in the US Senate. Not enough to break the filibuster, to actually get some things done for people Right, not enough to really get anything done. Not to do anything. But we can go out and raise money because we're in the majority. That's where we're at right now. We do just enough.

Speaker 1: 11:58

And it is brutal, as someone who's been out there in the trenches in a variety of ways. It is brutal, it is grueling, it will break you. It shouldn't be this hard. We don't have to make it this hard. We make it harder than it needs to be, to our own detriment. And then we act like we're all geniuses because we're so smart that we've been able to figure out how to craft these clever narratives. Why? Why, we are letting them off the hook here, and here's the proof. Here's all I need. Article Yahoo News Monday morning.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Yesterday morning, donald Trump has reportedly expressed disappointment in South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem after she revealed she killed her puppy. That's it right. An insider said, quote she was already unlikely to be picked as VP, which I don't buy, but was very disappointed quote to hear the story about her dog. See what they did there. See what they did there. It was the New York Post, by the way, where they got this information. So obviously Trump friendly publication they did. They carried his water for him.

Speaker 1: 13:01

They allowed the Trump who is the Republican Party right by Trump saying oh no, she's, she's a bad person. Well, I don't really agree with that. He didn't really come out and condemn her, right, he didn't even say anything directly. But you know he's going to distance himself from her and that'll be it. She'll be on an island, she's done. But we allow them to cut their losses and move on. That's insanity. That's insanity and here's how I know it's insanity because if the roles were reversed, can you imagine, can you imagine for one second, if that story was about Kamala Harris shooting the family dog? Think about that for a second. Go back four years. She's not the same vice president. She's on the short list. She's clearly a rising star.

Speaker 1: 13:47

A lot has been said about her's in the eye sitting elected official of high stature and a story comes out that she shot her family dog. Would the republicans have ever let go of that story? Ever? No, no way. No way they would have. They would have, aside from destroying her, they would have been able to paint democrats in a light that is, again, not accurate. It's a broad, sweeping generalization. Do I believe that the overwhelming majority, the almost 99.5% of Republicans, even the MAGA Republicans, would shoot the family dog? Of course not.

Speaker 1: 14:25

But what we have to understand is that we are carrying a I don't know what's the least effective weapon I can think of. We're carrying a piece of string to a nuclear war. Right, these people don't play fair and you know I hear a lot of oh well, we have to be better than them. We have to be better, we have to do better, we have to show we can win. You know what? We don't have that luxury. Find a woman in Texas who's trying to get an abortion and ask her if she gives a damn about our messaging strategy. Look at what happened on January 6th Court are going out of their way to try to make this the biggest loophole, hack, job getaway and dangerous for our republic in American history.

Speaker 1: 15:17

Does anybody care? Should anybody care when it's the truth? To me, that's the guiding star, right, that's the North Star. If it's the truth, I don't care how unpalatable it is. It needs to be out there and it needs to be out there in a way that is so overwhelming. It needs to be shock and awe and make sure the voters don't forget.

Speaker 1: 15:38

Screw the press releases. Screw the little tweets, screw the. I'm disappointed. You need to tether Donald Trump and the Republicans to what Christine Noem did and you need to make them pay for it politically. And if that sounds callous, I don't care. I do not care. I want to win the damn election. I want to win Congress. I want to win the presidency. I want to win state legislatures. I want to be in a position where I don't have to get up every morning, look at my kids across the breakfast table and wonder what the hell kind of country they are about to inherit.

Speaker 1: 16:15

That's it. It's that simple. Set a narrative. When an opportunity arises from a narrative point of view, you must capitalize on it. But instead we're going to let them get away with it because it is the humane thing to do, right? That's crazy. That is hubris at its absolute height. It is a values message. It's not even a disingenuous message. If this story hadn't come out, this woman could be vice president. She'd be next in line to the presidency, and she's clearly a sociopath that she can be next in line to the presidency and she's clearly a sociopath. This needs to be out there, that these are the kind of people that are being put on pedestals and treated like moral leaders. Shame on us for not doing this. Shame on us.

Speaker 1: 17:04

I get political fundraising emails from everybody on the planet, including a congressional candidate where I'm keeping track, I think since the primary, I've gotten about 11. It's a whole other podcast. You need to weaponize this, I'm sorry. You need to weaponize this Instead of the. I'm desperately trying to do whatever I need. I'm democracies on the ballot. Give me $3. That message, I'm sorry, has gotten stale. We need to throw a disruptor in there to get people to pay attention because use the economy. Let's compare it to the economy. The economy, by all indicators, is fantastic, but people feel like the economy is bad. They feel it Because voters vote and make decisions and form their opinions based on emotion, not fact, as much as Democrats would love for it to be the opposite, and so would I.

Speaker 1: 17:56

Look at COVID If that didn't teach us that emotion can trump fact. With voters. What else do we need to know? People go vote and form their opinions, especially in a situation where no one knows what's real anymore Fake news, everybody, there's so much happening. They want to grab onto something simple that they can feel. This is something simple that they can feel. It defines who she is and then defines the people around her by association, especially when they will not brazenly speak out against her. And there are so many quotes and clips of everybody talking about how wonderful this woman is. You could drown people in them, you could, no pun intended. You could fill a gravel pit with all of it, but we're not doing it. We're not doing it. We're not doing it. One quick story to wrap this up, because I know I'm furious today, and this is how I know. You don't mess with people's dogs, and I'm not just saying this as a dog owner.

Speaker 1: 18:53

In 2010, I had my first real re-election in the state house. They targeted my seat. It was the tea party year, southwestern Pennsylvania. We ended up getting crushed down there. We lost the majority because we failed to build it in 08 when Obama got elected Another story for another day. Everybody was in trouble and my opponent who ironically ended up endorsing me in 2012, my Republican opponent was a 50-some-year-old business guy Not a bad person, certainly not like a MAGA crazy or anything like that but he was my opponent and it was one of those things where they told him stay home, stay out of trouble. We're just going to throw a ton of money against this guy and try to take him out. So it was a real race and I had to take it seriously.

Speaker 1: 19:37

So the mail consultants were like you need to do 15 pieces of direct mail about issues and all the things that you normally get. There was a lot going on that year. I don't know if there was a US Senate race, but I know there was a gubernatorial race. There was a lot. There was a lot happening in 2010. And so people were getting tons of mail and all that stuff. Lot. There's a lot happened in 2010, and so people were getting tons of mail and all that stuff. And when we did our mail plan, which cost like an absolute fortune that I didn't have.

Speaker 1: 20:06

I wanted to add a piece. I was single at the time. I actually was divorced and hadn't met my or been with my current wife yet, and I was living with my two dogs, abby and Delano, and I would take them places and as part of my social media, I would have them feature. They actually had their own page. They still have it, actually, I think. So they were everywhere and I made them part of who I was, because they were part of who I was. It's who I was spending my time with. So I had this idea.

Speaker 1: 20:42

That was the year, that term, we had banned puppy mills in the legislature and we've done some other things and I was working with, like the Humane Society. I was doing some animal legislation and it was an area that I was. I'm on the House Judiciary Committee. They were dealing with a lot of this stuff. It was kind of a little bit of you know, compared to all the environmental stuff I was doing, which was just brutally hard. This was stuff where people kind of it worked for all time zones right, like you could do things. That people were like, yeah, that's common sense.

Speaker 1: 21:06

So I had this idea that I was going to do a piece of direct mail from my dogs. Right, I wanted to do something different, something kind of fun, but still talk about some things that would just kind of break up the monotony. The House Democratic Campaign Committee flatly refused to pay for it. Right, they were like nope, we're doing 15 pieces of mail. They're all like four of them were duplicates of one another, but they're like we're absolutely not doing this. Okay, fine, I felt so strongly about it and I was so convinced that the cookie-cutter approach that was being taken in Harrisburg was going to result in massive losses for Democrats which, by the way, is exactly what happened.

Speaker 1: 21:46

I said I'm going to do it myself, I designed it myself, paid for it myself. It was only like a four by six postcard and on the front and I picture my dogs and it said we're Abby and Delano, we're Jesse White's dogs and we cannot wait for this election to be over. Had my logo on it, turned it over on the back. We had like a fun font and it was written from them in like the first person, and it was like. You know, this election stinks. Like Jesse's not home, as much, you know, we're not getting to go on his May walks. He's tired when he comes home. But we get it because he passed, you know, he banned puppy meals. He did this. So then I flipped it into some policy stuff, right, and then it ends with for God's sakes, we need to just elect this guy so we can get back. We can get our owner back and he can go back to and doing things to help dog owners or dogs like us. Fun Little paw print at the bottom.

Speaker 1: 22:34

Then, to keep costs down, I went to the county sheriff's offices, got the list of dog owners, the dog licenses, cross-referenced it against my super voter list like by hand, and sent it out to that group. So it was maybe like 5,000 people in a voting universe of I don't know 30,000, 25,000. It was by far the most effective piece of political mail I've ever done. The feedback was instant and universally positive. People loved it because it was different and it showed something they could connect to. They were dog owners. They got it. I wasn't just some politician asking for a vote. I was relating to them in a way they understood on it and touching a nerve, not in a bad way, but touching a nerve that they cared about deeply, and it worked. Oh, and, by the way, the next campaign cycle. Some of the very same people who I had to go to war with inside the party to try to get that piece done and they still wouldn't pay for it inside the party to try to get that piece done and they still wouldn't pay for it started putting out that exact same piece and were suddenly praised as geniuses and won a bunch of awards for it.

Speaker 1: 23:48

My thoughts on some of that stuff can wait for another day. Let's stay focused here. The point being, people care about their dogs, and how people treat a dog is a value statement of the highest magnitude, and the Republicans have just failed a value statement of the highest magnitude and the Republicans have just failed that value statement. That values test in a horrific way, but it will only mean anything politically if we make them pay for it, and it is not callous political messaging that you could turn your nose up at. It is the kind of thing that people care about, and it is important because it is keeping people who would do that sort of thing out of office, because if that's what they'll do to a dog, think of what they'll do to a person, specifically someone that they devalue as a human being, which is what the Republicans under Trump have made an art form.

Speaker 1: 24:39

We are no longer opponents, we are enemies. It doesn't matter what happens to us. If they could, they would gladly take some Democrats and put them in a gravel pit and shoot them. Do you know how? I know, because they basically come out and say it, they attack our Capitol, they cause violence, they incite violence, and that's at the top. So wake up, seize the moment, seize the narrative. For the love of God, just for one time, play the game the way that we are being forced to play it, so we can win. This has been the Keystone Reckoning Podcast. I'm Jesse White and, yeah, I'm still hot. Have a great day.