South Dakota Republican Governor Christy Noime tells a story when she first met Donald Trump. He greeted her at the Oval Office Fees, and after they shook hands, returned the compliment by inviting her to visit him in her circle.
“We have Mount Rushmore,” he said, hoping he would be enticed by a trip to the famous rock sculpture featuring four of his presidential predecessors. Trump replied: “You know, it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?”
“I started laughing,” Noim recalls. “He wasn’t laughing, so he was absolutely serious.”
48, Noim is sensible enough to know when to joke a potential patron. In July, Trump traveled to Mount Rushmore on July 4 for an Independence Day fireworks display. To mark the occasion, she presented him with a four-legged model of a granite monument completed with the addition of a fifth president – Trump.
After losing to Joe Biden in the election, Donald Trump is likely to be carved next to Abraham Lincoln on Mount Rushmore like Donald Duck. But after Trump’s defeat, Noime is still sticking to the president and his policies as if his political life depends on him.
The horrific surge of Covid-19 cases could make the real lives of many South Dakotans dependent, knocking out the state under Noim’s controversial leadership. South Dakota has been listed by Forbes as one of the 10 most dangerous states in the Union, all in the Midwest.
The coronavirus is running rampant in South Dakota, only through its neighbor North Dakota to the U.S. The state has an alarming positivity rate of about 60% – six out of 10 people taking the covid test are infected – second only to neighboring Wyoming.
Seen through the lens of case and death, South Dakota also tops the league table. The disease has infected more than 66,000 South Dakotans and killed at least 4,644 people, with the number expected to rise as hospitals reach breaking points.
In the midst of this devastating infection, Noem has been sticking to the strategy he has adopted since the epidemic began. These include the refusal to accept the mask command and the repeated denial of the science surrounding the effectiveness of wearing the mask; Resistance to imposing any restrictions on bars and restaurants; There are no restrictions on gatherings in churches or other places of worship; And no order to stay home.
While the statistics are clear – the virus is running wild in South Dakota – Noime has turned the public health crisis into an issue of “freedom” and “liberty”, which is about the path of the disease under its constant supervision. “We’re doing really well in South Dakota. We are operating Covid-19, “he said.
Even after she proved ineffective and potentially dangerous, she has accepted the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for covid.
If all this sounds familiar, that’s why. Since the onset of the epidemic, Noime has consciously adopted a mini-Trump posture in the wake of every step the president has taken to address the health crisis.
“Go-go, his approach was a reflection of the Trump administration,” said Lisa Hager, a political scientist at South Dakota State University. “She has been adamant about the people making their choices and it is not the government’s role to take action – and she has played a very good role for her in her political career.”
Noime made the Trump line a champion – playing down the virus, turning it into science, failing to put in place even basic public health measures to contain the disease – his rise to prominence in the Republican firm. His first act as governor was to set up a TV studio in his home for the use of live interviews, a smart move given his frequent appearances on Fox News in recent months.
Trump attracted his attention last year because of his growing stature in the world, in 2016 as the former campaign manager of Trump’s first presidential campaign. Lewandowski took No Me under her wing and cheered her on the whirlwind tour of the Trump campaign this year. For her Magga supporters across the country.
“Lewandowski is coaching how to provoke conflict to attract attention,” said Corey Alan Heidelberger, who wrote the liberal blog Dakota Free Press. “She says conflict is meditation, meditation is influence – so create conflict wherever you can.”
Noime can certainly claim to be an A-grade student when it comes to creating conflict. The July 4 Mount Rushmore event was one of two large public gatherings that were blessed against the advice of health experts.
The second was the Sturgis motorcycle rally which Noime actively welcomed. The gathering attracted about 500,000 people in 10 days and is now believed to be the mother of all the super-spreader events that helped provoke the Covid disaster that the Midwest is now suffering from.
As the crisis spreads around her, she hangs up with her guns and is led by her maskless pattern. Last week she competed in a high school football championship at the indoor sports dome that required a mask for everyone in attendance – she broke the rules and bravely faced the odds.
There are two possible reasons why Noim sticks to Trump’s cowardly playbook, even if he was brought to the presidency as a lame-duck. Unlike other parts of the country, Trump’s support in South Dakota has been maintained by 62 percent of voters since 2016, forcing him to keep on good terms with Trump supporters so she should run for a second term as governor in two years. .
Despite its increasingly nationalized platform, the most likely explanation is that Noime has surrounded itself with employee cottages led by Beltway strategists and lobbyists, apart from cultivating its profile on Fox News and at Trump rallies across the country.
“The reason you do has nothing to do with the South Dakota regime,” Heidelberger said. “She’s totally focused on the national scene.”
On January 20, Trump will kick himself out of the White House – quite possibly, kicking and screaming. But Trumpism will live and thrive in its re-production in South Dakota, while the epidemic is raging around the quiet and masculine head of its governor.
