“I wish I owned half of that dog…Because I would kill my half.” - Pudd’nhead Wilson

The fictional genius who invented fingerprint analysis to solve a murder case had already cemented his reputation as a fool decades before with a clumsy joke about killing a dog. Neither his apparent talent nor his subsequent accomplishments could overcome the first impression made on the simple townsfolk of Dawson’s Landing. It was decided then and there, on Wilson’s first day in town, that he must be and would thereafter be referred to as a pudd’nhead.

One hundred years later, not much has changed. Kristi Noem’s anecdote about shooting a vicious dog decades ago has all but ruined her political prospects, which included consideration as Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate.

For all the similarities, though, there are important differences. First, the Dawson’s Landing townsfolk don’t descend into moral panic over Wilson’s remark. Their objection to it was its apparent absurdity. 1830 Missourians understood dogs got shot when they were a nuisance, especially if their offenses included killing livestock and attacking humans. These weren’t people who could afford to be hysterical over killing an animal. They were employed mostly in agriculture, where animals were killed for food on a daily basis, far away from pristine dining rooms where dwelt the few at that time who may have objected.

Neither was this Noem’s first day in town, figuratively speaking. She has been in politics since 2007, serving first as a representative in South Dakota’s State House of Representatives and then as a representative in Congress for several terms. She is halfway through her second term as governor, having won reelection in a landslide after being the one and only governor in the United States who did not lock down her state for even a single day during Coronasteria, a.k.a. “the pandemic.”

It is a mystery how someone with Noem’s wisdom and political experience could commit such a colossal blunder. And let’s be clear, it wasn’t shooting the dog that has sunk her; it was including the anecdote in her book. Had she simply shot the dog and went on with her life, nobody would have known. Even if some opposition researcher had found out in a hypothetical campaign for higher office, nobody would have cared.

Like Wilson, Noem has managed to torpedo a career that featured notable good deeds with the poor choice of a few words.

That words count far more than deeds says more about the American public than it does about Noem. The firestorm that has erupted over poor, vicious “Cricket” (the late canine) certainly includes opportunistic political opponents. No Democrat wants to see Noem picked as Trump’s running mate or otherwise continue to ascend the political ladder. But even conservatives and other heretofore allies have joined her detractors, shrieking their self-righteous indignation on social media under the hashtag #KristiNoemisamonster.

Given the behavior of American presidents just in the years since Cricket met his demise, it is truly terrifying to consider how infantile the American public has become, especially in a democratic republic with most restraints upon the democratic part all but destroyed.

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Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? 

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Tom