Kristi Noem: A Case Study in the GOP Tilt Toward Ostentatious Fascism

Why? Because she’s been too
sadistic even for Donald Trump and Stephen Miller? Please. She’s probably not
sadistic enough for Miller. No, the problem appears to be that Trump,
depending on who was the last person he spoke to about it, seems to think that
Corey Lewandowski, Noem’s longtime, ah … amanuensis, let’s say … has too
much power. The Bulwark reporter who advanced this story over the weekend wrote
that his sources said it could happen very soon, or that Trump might wait “to
let Noem oversee the launch of new enforcement operations planned for January
and February.” Gulp.

We would normally welcome this
development, except that Trump’s track record has trained us all to dispense
with any reaction of automatic relief, because we now know whoever succeeds the
Noem-Lewandowski Amphisbaena
will be even more ghoulish. As it happens, there is a likely inheritor,
at least according to the rumor mill. We’ll circle back to him in a minute. But
first, if we are indeed in the twilight of Noem’s public career, we should
quickly review it, because she symbolizes and embodies her party’s descent from
mere hard-line reactionary conservatism to ostentatious fascism.

Noem got herself elected to the
South Dakota House of Representatives in 2006, where she focused on lowering
property taxes and expanding gun rights. Four years of that was enough, and in
2010, the big Tea Party year, she made it to Congress. In this age of Barack
Obama, she, like so many of her fellow Republicans, became like Groucho’s
famous Professor Wagstaff of Horse Feathers: Whatever it was, she was against it.
That posture flipped immediately when Trump become president, which isn’t
remarkable; if she stood out for anything at the time, it was probably her
ferocious opposition to abortion rights. She’s the “no exceptions, not even for
rape or incest” type.