Kristi Noem rigidly follows Trump strategy of denial as Covid ravages South Dakota

[Celerity]

Republican governor clings to the president despite his defeat and claims ‘we’re doing really good’ with state’s positivity rate at 60%

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/19/kristi-noem-trump-strategy-denial-covid-ravages-south-dakota



Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, tells a story about the first time she met Donald Trump. He welcomed her to the Oval Office, and after they shook hands she returned the compliment by inviting him to visit her back in her home state. “We have Mount Rushmore,” she said, hoping he would be tempted by a trip to the famous rock sculpture depicting four of his presidential predecessors. Trump replied: “Do you know, it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?” “I started laughing,” Noem recalls. “He wasn’t laughing, so he was totally serious.” Noem, 48, is savvy enough to know when to humour a potential patron. In July, Trump did make the trip to Mount Rushmore on 4 July for an Independence Day fireworks display. To mark the occasion, she presented him with a four-foot model of the granite monument complete with the addition of a fifth president – Trump.

Having lost to Joe Biden in the election, Donald Trump has as much chance of being carved next to Abraham Lincoln on Mount Rushmore as Donald Duck. But since Trump’s defeat, Noem has still clung to the president and to his policies as though her political life depends on it. The actual lives of many South Dakotans could depend, in turn, upon that decision given the terrifying surge of Covid-19 cases that is battering the state under Noem’s contentious leadership. South Dakota has been listed by Forbes as one of the 10 most dangerous states in the Union, all of them in the Midwest. Coronavirus in South Dakota is running at an intensity only surpassed in the US by its neighbour North Dakota. The state has an alarming positivity rate of almost 60% – nearly six out of 10 people who take a Covid test are infected – second only to another neighbour, Wyoming.

Viewed through the lens of cases and deaths, South Dakota is also at the top of the league table. More than 66,000 South Dakotans have contracted the disease and at least 644 have died, a number likely to rise as hospitals reach breaking point. Amid this devastating contagion, Noem is rigidly sticking to the strategy she has adopted since the pandemic began. It consists of a refusal to accept mask mandates and repeated denial of the science around the efficacy of wearing masks; resistance to imposing any restrictions on bars and restaurants; no limits on gatherings in churches or other places of worship; and no orders to stay at home.

While the statistics are clear – the virus is running wild in South Dakota – Noem has turned a public health emergency into an issue of “freedom” and “liberty”, consistently lying about the trajectory of the disease under her watch. “We’re doing really good in South Dakota. We’re managing Covid-19,” she has said. She has also embraced the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid, even after it was proven to be ineffective and potentially dangerous. If all of this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Since the start of the pandemic, Noem has consciously adopted the posture of a mini-Trump, following the president’s every move in the handling of the health crisis. “From the get-go, her approach was mirroring the Trump administration,” said Lisa Hager, a political scientist at South Dakota State University. “She’s been adamant about people making their own choices and that it’s not the government’s role to step in – and it has played very well for her in her political career.”

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she needs to be charged with crimes against humanity

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. Screw the both of them

Both are horrible people. They deserve each other.

[leftieNanner]

2. And Two Years from Now

She will win reelection in her state. After killing untold thousands of her constituents.

Geez.

[redstatebluegirl]

3. She sees herself as Presidential material.

For that she needs the racist, crazy base.