Kristi Noem keeps expecting us to understand why she murdered her dog. It's mindboggling.
For nearly two weeks now, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has doubled, even tripled, down on the story she shares in her upcoming book about shooting and killing her 14-month-old Cricket after she said the puppy killed a neighbor's chickens and seemed dangerous to her kids.
The governor immediately faced backlash and harsh criticism from Republicans and Democrats and chose not to ignore, retract or apologize. Noem has instead talked about it repeatedly, publicly, for days.
The fact that this story was ever mentioned and then struck a nerve demonstrates what people think about candidates like Noem and the type of news they consume.
Surprise! Americans love dogs. This isn't partisan or gender-specific or anything. Turns out, Americans have specific feedback reserved for a person who admittedly brutalizes a dog. Few people can cross this ground without serious pushback or consequences. Noem tested this, then stood defiant.
The media isn't giving Noem a pass because she won't stop talking about it
In her new book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward,” Noem says she "hated” Cricket and put him down when she realized the dog was “untrainable,” “dangerous" and a “less than worthless” hunting dog.
Apparently, Noem's team advised her to leave the dog murder out of her first book, but she didn't leave it out of this one. Now, asked about it on several news shows, Noem continues to fire back, overexplaining why she killed the dog, reminding audiences that she felt he was dangerous to her children and that she's a tough, protective parent.
On the Sunday talk show "Face the Nation," Noem was asked about another dog passage where she jokes that President Joe Biden's dog Commander shouldn't be alive because the German Shepherd has bitten numerous people. "Commander, say hello to Cricket for me," Noem writes.
The problem with the Met Gala: Yes, Zendaya looked stunning. But Met Gala was a tone-deaf charade of excess and hypocrisy.
She doubled down on this story, too, saying the president should be "accountable." Following the interview, Noem complained that she had been interrupted as part of a liberal plot. Unfortunately, conservative outlets haven't given the governor a pass, either.
In another interview, Fox Business host Stuart Varney asked Noem whether President Donald Trump had talked to her about the dog. She is allegedly on his shortlist for vice president.
“Enough, Stuart. This interview is ridiculous, what you are doing right now. So you need to stop,” Noem said. “Let’s talk about some real topics that Americans care about.”
"The media" gets a lot of heat for creating a circus. But in this case, it's just an example of knowing a juicy story when they see it and they've capitalized on it. For all Noem's efforts, she continues to walk into the crossfire, yelling, "Bring it on!" as she proceeds to shoot herself in the foot. Pardon the pun.
It takes two to tango and everybody is still dancing. The news media isn't letting go partially because she doesn't seem to be, either. Her reaction is strange, telling and very Trumpian. No thanks.
Noem thinks defending the murder of a dog is the bravado voters want
Here's the thing: Noem's dog-killing story is so unnecessary to begin with, I wonder why she wrote it down at all, let alone chose to keep it against advice suggesting otherwise.
Like most politicians, she's calculated. She's got a PR team. (Full disclosure: One of them tapped me to write her 2021 book about South Dakota but went with other writers.)
Noem seems to have believed that the MAGA GOP wants a vulnerable but tough, pretty but gritty, vice president standing by Trump's side.
I don't see how this earns Noem respect, votes or likeability. It feels like she's trying too hard to be a female version of a Bush-Trump mashup.
Enough already. Who are you, really? Putting a puppy down for humane reasons is imaginable, but doing so and being crude, harsh and bragging about it crosses the line. Noem didn't seem to know where that line was and now doesn't seem to care.
Why are Republicans listening to MTG?: If Marjorie Taylor Greene is the future of the Republican Party, I don't want it
It's easy to see why she might think the best route is to double down on bad news. It's supposed to effectively kill the story, to give it nowhere to go.
But these days, she seems to have poor judgment or can't admit when she's wrong. Kudos for standing for one's convictions, but what if they're flat-out gross, inhumane or just plain weird? Nobody likes an arrogant jerk except for the millions of MAGA voters, of course.
Noem is right about one thing: This is a story and a nonstory all at once. Since she was in the run for the VP spot and Trump's chances of winning were improving, this became pertinent in a way it might not have been if she wasn't in that conversation.
But America doesn't want a female Trump. Even Republicans don't seem to want a woman acting with bravado. A lot of women are gun owners. But it's one thing to own a gun for protection and another to treat it like an accessory for your bravado. Trust me, Trump does this enough for the entire ticket combined. But also, Americans generally don't like women cosplaying as teenage boys. I said what I said.
Do Americans prefer to skim superficial news rather than digest vital news?
Is Noem's dog murder story awful? Yes. From a broader perspective, are there more important things to discuss than Noem's weird home life? Yes. In fact, a lot more important ? life-and-death important: Gaza. Israel. Ukraine. The American economy. Crime. The list goes on. This is why the viral nature of Noem's story is her fault and our fault.
The news media no longer tells people what to think. We try to listen to our audiences and feed them the diet they want. Sure, occasionally, they want filet mignon, but a lot of the time, they just want McDonald's, maybe even just french fries. (They are so salty, so good, and so bad.)
Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store.
The world feels heavy and dark now and sometimes, focusing on a stupid and tragic, bizarre and mind-boggling story about a Republican who rides horses, wants to run for VP and also killed her puppy for being untrainable is the kind of superficial story that feels easier to digest than the rank antisemitism filling U.S. schools.
We all can get behind hating a dog-murdering story. We all know where we stand on that. We know there are probably more pressing issues, but we still can't help but feel annoyed, maybe even a little outraged, that the Republican Party tried to pass her off as a great example for a VP pick.
The Noem story struck a nerve because, for once, we agreed on something. This is nothing to brag about, even if there are worse things happening in the world.
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kristi Noem shot her dog Cricket and expects us to understand? No.
