Blue-check Twitter brands Kristi Noem a ‘cyborg’ for not locking down South Dakota following her 98yo grandma’s death

The South Dakota governor has been slammed for refusing to impose strict Covid-19 controls after her grandmother’s non-Covid related death in a care home – where masks were required. Such minor details haven’t stopped the pile-on.

The Republican governor was savaged as a “cyborg” and an unfeeling creature for not responding to her nonagenarian grandmother’s death by shutting down the state – something she has refused to do throughout the pandemic. Such a policy has elicited praise from her constituents, but howls of derision from the blue-tick intelligentsia - most of whom, it’s safe to say, have never been to South Dakota.

The Daily Beast had the decency to wait until a day after Noem had buried her grandmother on Monday to attack her for not responding “correctly” to near-centenarian Aldys Arnold’s death. Nevertheless, they argued her refusal to make policy based on the death of her grandmother – who, Noem’s office has stressed, tested negative for Covid-19 before dying – represented a personal failing and proof she was, as the Beast has said previously, “Covid-19’s cartoon villain.”

Further down in the Beast’s hit piece, it reluctantly admitted that the facility where Arnold died already had a mask mandate – which apparently doesn’t have sufficient supernatural powers to prevent all death, since the 98-year-old was one of 13 people to die over a two-week period in the Estelline Nursing Home. Families of the dead even praised the facility, leaving the Beast with little to work with other than Noem’s “failure” to deliver a personal message to their relatives while she was mourning her own grandmother. Who’s the unfeeling cyborg here?

In any other year, 98 would be considered a ripe old age, and, while losing a grandparent is never easy, it’s absurd to suggest that exceeding the national life expectancy by two decades is a life cut short. So much of the Covid-19 panic is operating on the irrational assumption that humanity can conquer death, and anyone who points this out is slimed as an emotionally stunted ghoul who puts profits before people – as if quality of life is possible without the funds to pay for food and shelter. 

And if Noem had tuned out such reasoning to govern by emotion and punish the entire state for her grandmother’s death? She would no doubt have been accused of fulfilling the worst stereotypes of female politicians: of ruling with her heart instead of her head.

But not only did Noem not cave in to the demands of the lockdown fetishists following Arnold’s death, she continued defending her approach to the pandemic and mocked media-designated president-elect Joe Biden’s patronizing efforts to soothe the virus-crazed populace.

Responding to Biden’s “message to everyone struggling right now” that “help is on the way,” Noem posted a well-known quote from former president Ronald Reagan. The conservative icon famously joked that the scariest nine words for Americans to hear were “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

The tweet triggered a supercharged outpouring of abuse, with social media users calling for Noem to be jailed for her “negligence” and her refusal to put the citizens of her sparsely populated state under house arrest.

But the governor’s policy has not been to merely turn a blind eye to Covid-19 deaths, as described in antagonistic media. “South Dakota trusted our citizens to exercise their personal responsibility to keep themselves and their loved ones safe,” she tweeted back in July, explaining that she has “always taken Covid-19 very seriously” but her office simply does not have the right to impose a statewide mask mandate. “People that want to wear masks should wear masks, and people who don’t should not be shamed because they choose not to,” she reiterated last month.

The governor is no anti-science loon – she has explained, echoing rapidly memory-holed World Health Organization guidance, that “it’s very, very difficult to spread the virus when you’re asymptomatic,” and made clear her belief that plunging South Dakota into an economic depression would only make things worse for the sick. Indeed, many states have seen their case count soar after imposing mask mandates and lockdowns, and a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that even the strictest lockdowns were unable to stop the spread of the virus.

If anything, South Dakota’s governor has “listened to the science” more closely than her peers. More proof is emerging that the heavy-handed pandemic response seen around the world was based on faultydata, and is likely hurting more people than it helps. Tens of thousands of medical professionals have banded together to plead with the world’s governments to roll back the ill-informed totalitarianism supposedly justified by Covid-19.

It’s telling that while the media have excoriated Noem for the unthinkable crime of respecting her constituents’ constitutional rights, many outlets have turned a blind eye as other politicians laying down much stricter rules are caught violating them. From Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom’s French Laundry illegal dining extravaganza to the Democrat (notice a pattern here?) mayor of Austin, Texas, jetting off to a Mexican resort last month (where he proceeded to record a video reminding Austin residents to stay home lest further restrictions be piled on them, these mini-Mussolinis largely get a pass from the establishment. Noem is wise not to listen. As Americans flee New York, California, and other states operating under the banner of Snitch Nation in droves, South Dakota has its doors open for them.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.