South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem goes completely off the rails

| 11:00 pm EST March 1, 2021
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Kristi Noem, who is perforce Republican, is one of the most derelict governors in the country. A science denier and an endorser of the Big Lie, she worships at the altar of the previous president with cult-like devotion. Noem also abuses her post as Governor of South Dakota, making taxpayers fund her unlawful use of state aircraft for personal trips. It’s fitting that Noem should be a speaker at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) because she’s the type of far-right cultist and reprehensible personality they require of their performers.

Noem is in charge of a state with fewer than 900,000 residents. Of those, about one in eight has contracted COVID-19, with about one in every 474 South Dakotans dead of the virus. Despite its sparse and decentralized population, South Dakota has seen a higher percentage of its residents fall ill or die from coronavirus than we’ve seen at the national level. South Dakota is also the only state to have taken exactly zero measures to combat the virus. At CPAC, Noem inexplicably boasted about her complete inaction with regards to COVID-19. Only in GOP circles would dereliction of one’s duties earn a standing ovation.

Noem isn’t only delinquent in her non-management of coronavirus in her state, she’s culpable as a proponent of election lies and in her habit of using her position to benefit personally. Noem’s astoundingly hands-off approach to governing while collecting a salary shows how little she’s concerned with the people of South Dakota and their wellbeing. Noem attended CPAC to heighten her national profile amongst the deplorables on the far right. Governor Noem is the archetypal Republican official, as she is vehemently anti-LGBT, anti-choice, wields religion as a weapon, promotes falsehoods and conspiracies, and views government merely as a way to serve her own interests. That sounds completely on-brand for the QAnon party.