The Horror of Kristi Noem

UPDATE: Cricket's Revenge

Nearly two years after Kristi Noem first revealed her "gravel pit" eugenics to the world, the same impulsive cruelty and narcissistic entitlement have finally cost her. This original character analysis is now an accurate blueprint for the scandals that would eventually lead to Trump cutting her loose as Homeland Security Secretary.

It is a terrible archaeology, sifting through the layers of poor Cricket’s death, revealing a multidimensional political horror of Noem as a human being, an elected official, and a legitimate aspirant to a vice presidency through Donald Trump’s Republican ticket.

There is so much more found in her recounting the dramatic, taboo-crossing cruelty of killing Cricket. In parsing The Guardian report on Noem’s upcoming (now published April 2024) book, three aspects keep turning in my head. Together, these move beyond Cricket’s death, connecting Noem et al. to a horror of Lovecraftian scale that keeps revealing more and more as a reader pursues and ponders the events Noem put forward.

Noem’s Eugenics

Noem deemed Cricket a "useless eater." Unconforming to the role assigned to Cricket by “genetics” as a bird dog, Noem saw a dog needing an edit from the gene pool. “Less than worthless … as a hunting dog,” reported The Guardian. Cricket was at once untrainable, then acting like a “trained assassin” of chickens later in Noem’s telling of the tale.

Cricket was not a proper bird dog and thus needed to be killed. Cricket as a family pet for a suburban family, or as a sniffer dog for the Sioux Falls airport TSA—no, such notions never entered her mind. While ranchers and farmers live closer to cycles of life and death than most of us, Noem’s eugenic judgment of Cricket goes beyond anything that “had to be done” into a fascistic belief in ruthless consequences for non-conformity and non-utility.

Noem’s Narcissism

Cricket’s “untrainability” went on public display when the dog dispatched a number of chickens at a family’s farm. Noem paid for the loss and helped collect carcasses, all while Noem described Cricket as “the picture of pure joy” after killing the chickens. At that point, she says, “I hated that dog.”

Her hatred of Cricket rose from embarrassment, compounded by her narcissism. Noem sees Cricket’s chicken incident not as her mistake for letting an untrained dog out unleashed to act on an aspiring bird dog’s inclination to pursue birds, but as an attack on her. A very Trumpian response here indeed. This failure to make Noem look competent gave rise to a murderous hatred.

“Where’s Cricket?” her daughter says, arriving home shortly after the killing. Clearly others thought about Cricket, but that did not matter at all to Noem. Cricket made her look bad, and that needed rectification.

Noem’s Murderous Rage

The Guardian description is not the full passage from Noem’s book, but it appears Noem just snaps. She drags Cricket to a gravel pit, oblivious to workers around her watching and just before her children would arrive home from school, and puts a shell into Cricket’s head.

But then, Noem is still so angry she decides to kill a goat that offended her. Did she have a double-barrel shotgun, finish Cricket off with one shot, and then feel so enraged still that the goat needed scapegoating with the remaining shell? Specifics are not clear in the Guardian piece, but this was all an impulsive act, considering she needed to run back to her truck for more shells to finish off the goat, who survived the first blast.

Noem’s act was impulsive violence, not a considered decision regarding an animal’s fate that a rancher would make. And, if one considers governing a country, this is the most unsettling aspect of the Cricket story—spree-killing animals in a fit of rage because of a narcissistic wound. Who would want Noem anywhere near possibly being one heartbeat away from the nuclear button if a young, poorly trained, errant dog sets her off for a shotgun and blood, with no care who sees it or what may happen afterward?

The Horror of the GOP Story

What is nearly the horror of Noem’s violent narcissistic fascistic rages is that she and those around her considered Cricket’s killing a good story for her vice-presidential audition book. Noem did not just self-publish a piece through Amazon while wearing a tinfoil hat. She had ghostwriters, editors, political consultants, kitchen cabinet, all sorts of folks who saw this pre-publication. I doubt Noem stood alone against a sea of advice from others to kill the story. No, there was a consensus among people in her orbit that telling this story would impress Trump and his immediate circle.

Noem has spent time with Trump. Her close advisors have done the same. They all understand cruelty delights Trump. They all feel the GOP gravity well, a pull of power for personal gain, expressed through domination of others for simply being other, to build the kleptocracy of Trump’s dreams. Government for Republicans does not exist to expand the common good, but instead to squeeze it dry. Or, for Noem, shoot the common good in its head.

Noem and her advisors determined the willingness to be violent, to cross boundaries of decency and law, to perform the harshest of acts on others based on the “category” they occupy is the way to win a GOP vice-presidential nomination. Killing Cricket in this impulsive, violent, cruel way is not her bar from the ticket. Trump will not take her on because he wants a milquetoast, loyal, quiet cruelty for his ticket, not a shotgun-wielding woman. While Noem possesses sought-after attributes, Trump’s ego cannot abide that her obvious narcissism and cruelty may exceed his.

And the horror expands.

Cricket's Revenge

Well, the chickens have come home to roost for Noem, and she is out as Department of Homeland Security Secretary. It is hardly surprising, considering her enormous narcissism and lack of impulse control. To Noem, the people rounded up by ICE—and even her own staff—were seemingly no different than Cricket.

She reportedly acquired a luxury Boeing 737 MAX with a private master bedroom suite that she and Corey Lewandowski were allegedly using to join the "mile-high club" at taxpayer expense — while separately burning $220 million on a self-promotional ad campaign she falsely claimed Trump approved. She felt entitled, living at the DHS apex and looking down upon the world.

Noem simply did not understand that Trump could see her as Cricket at any moment. Plus, as a woman, she was always more likely to be jettisoned—much like Elise Stefanik, who was cut from her U.N. post just to ensure a single vote in the House. Trump would never do that to a "bro." Noem lost Trump the moment that bipartisan congressional gauntlet hit her and she did not hit back. That is why he is moving to appoint Senator Markwayne Mullin—a former MMA fighter and loyalist—to keep the system beating people of color without any attendant drama or distraction. Noem was shuffled to a new role as Special Envoy for "The Shield of the Americas" — probably to annoy the Americas and save Trump some face, not to do her any kindness.

My prediction now: AG Pam Bondi is next.