Is naked xenophobia a Republican fetish...or just a hot new Conservative pornography trend?

Either way, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) is their new mistress

Can a Governor be removed from office for being a dumbass? Asking for a friend.

It has come to my attention, that air pollution is polluting the air!

• George W. Bush

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), who’s best known for being an ambulatory meat sack and “Christian family values” Jesus-y Republican who had a hot-and-heavy extra-marital affair with former Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski, is, to put it mildly, a real piece of work.

Another in a growing parade of intellectually- and morally-challenged hypocritical Republicans not-so-subtly campaigning to be Donny Diaperfull’s Vice President, Gov. Noem is heavily invested in proving she can be as gratuitously cruel, hateful, and heartless as any VP hopeful.

You have to hand it to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who over the weekend found herself banned from the Oglala Sioux’s Pine Ridge Reservation for the second time in five years. She has now been banished from more Native land than the 7th Cavalry.

Noem earned her latest banishment thanks to a speech she gave to the South Dakota Legislature last week. In it, the governor promised to send more murder wire and National Guard units to Texas to help fight what she termed an “invasion” of migrants, presumably before the poor exhausted souls can straggle a thousand miles up the spine of America to Sioux Falls and give drugs and possibly well-seasoned food to Kristi Noem’s grandchildren.

Kristi Noem will fight them in the streets, and the battle cry “Remember the Corn Palace!” shall echo down unto the generations.

First of all, there’s no “invasion” of immigrants. That’s just Right-wing fear-mongering intended to instill the fear of Brown People into the black hearts of gullible MAGAts.

When you’re firmly convinced Jesus is a kill-’em-and-grill-’em Republican

Second, sending razor wire to Texas for use along the border is a beautiful gesture…if the message you want to send is “I don’t care how much my fellow human beings suffer. They’re Brown, illegal, and of no value to me.”

That’s precisely what Jesus would do and say, yeah?? ‘Cuz Gov. Noem is a good and faithful Christian, don’tchaknow? Perhaps my memory’s faulty, but I don’t remember that being in the Gospel.

At least one person in South Dakota did not appreciate Noem’s glib demagoguery. That person was Frank Star Comes Out, which is in fact his extremely cool name and not the title of a YA novel about a teenager coming to terms with his sexuality. (We checked.)

Star Comes Out is the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and he was infuriated by the naked xenophobia and obvious cry for Donald Trump’s attention as his search for a vice presidential candidate ramps up. So he penned a letter to Noem informing her that starting immediately, she is persona non grata on his tribe’s land.

In his letter, Star Comes Out noted that since the Oglala Sioux Tribe is a sovereign nation, it is a protectorate of the United States, not the state of South Dakota. So if there is an “invasion” from which the Sioux need protection, it is the US government that provides it. And also, this isn’t an invasion, stop calling it that:

Thirdly, Governor Noem’s use of the term “invasion” as a justification to send S.D. National Guard troops to Texas under the Compact Clause is misplaced because:

“Only entry plus enmity constitutes an invasion. The unlawful entry of people into the United States cannot be construed as an invasion.”

So true. Unless the migrants crossed the US armed, in formation, and supported by artillery and/or air cover, we should probably assume that “invasion” was never the intent. There is no “entry plus enmity” at work in this case, only thousands of poor and bedraggled Brown People looking for better lives.

That’s not an “invasion.” That’s a humanitarian crisis. This has not stopped Republicans from seeking a political cudgel to bludgeon President Biden and keep him from grasping for any perceived advantage. It’s as pathetic as it is inhuman, but compassion and kindness have never been part of the GOP’s marching orders.

Republicans have never seen Brown People who come to the border hoping for a better life as people. They’re “illegals” and thus easy to dehumanize and turn away.

Kristi Noem is an idiot, but she’s thin and white so that’s good enough in America for her to run one of the Dakotas. She almost killed most of her constituents with COVID and now she’s hankering to get them into a civil war with the United States.

The South Dakota governor bragged on Fox News, which she later shared on her Xitter account, that she’s willing to load up a pickup truck with razor wire and drive down to Texas herself as a show of support for Gov. Greg Abbott. She probably doesn’t appreciate the irony in offering out-of-state assistance to someone who’s violating what she considers an unjust law. After all, she probably struggles with the definition of “irony.”

The irony of a “law and order” Republican determining which laws she’ll obey is comical…and more than a wee bit hypocritical. If a Democratic Governor were to do the same thing, Gov. Noem would bust a vein in apoplectic rage.

But a Republican selectively obeying laws? Meh, the law’s an ass, right?

“Texas and those 13 original colonies would have never signed the treaty that formed the first Constitution of the United States if they didn’t think their right to protect themselves and defend their own people was protected,” Noem said.

Look, Kristi Noem is just an average American who delivers razor wire to homicidal governors. Still, you’d think she’d have some grasp of basic US history, the type of facts that small children learn through nursery rhymes.

The 13 original colonies were Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia. Texas was not one of them. Texas was part of Spain during the Revolutionary War and when the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation in 1777. Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821 after a bloody war. Its territory included Texas.

The Republic of Texas would declare its independence from Mexico in 1836. At least, that’s what whitewashed history teaches. As I wrote back in 2021, when Abbott established his BS 1836 Project:

What really happened is that an increasingly large population of American settlers waged an armed rebellion against the centralist Mexican government. Immigration to Texas was opened to Americans in 1820, and by 1835 there were 10 times more Americans than Mexicans in Texas. Mexico should've built a wall.

A major catalyst for the Texas Revolution was — you guessed it! — slavery. The Texas economy was dependent on cotton, which was only profitable when enslaved people picked it for free. Vicente Guerrero, then president of the Republic of Mexico, declared that all enslaved people were emancipated, and those were fighting words for Anglo settlers.

It’s entirely possible- nay, virtually certain- that Gov. Noem knows as much about history as she does about leadership…which is to say, nothing.

A large number of Texans have been agitating for secession from the Union, but too many don’t realize that the Texas Revolution was about slavery. Texas students are taught a romanticized and heroic version of history. They’re taught that brave White men rescued the Texas Republic from the clutches of the evil Mexican Army when, in fact, it was about maintaining an economy that was only profitable when enslaved people picked cotton for nothing.

A great nation doesn’t need razor wire to keep desperate people out.

Yes, Texas was originally a “something for nothing” Paradise. Deal with it, Republicans. It was also a profoundly racist state, all the way through Jim Crow up to present times. It wasn’t until fairly recently that “sundown towns” faded from the lexicon of east Texas. If you think I’m kidding, try spending time in deep east Texas towns like Vidor or Beaumont. Race relations may be better than 50 or 60 years ago, but as more than one friend told me when I lived on the Texas Gulf Coast, “They still ain’t great.”

Of course, if you’re a White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexual living in Texas, you probably think I’m full of shit. But I lived there for 10+ years (3722 days…not that I was counting), so I think I know of which I speak. I’ve seen both the good and ugly sides of the Lone Star State, and while the good can be pretty awesome, the nasty can be…well, fugly would be an understatement.

And the fugly has been ably represented by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who stands for the hatred so many Texans feel for the Brown People who come into the Lone Star State by crossing the Rio Grand River. It’s also supported by Republican haters like Gov. Kristi Noem, who’s more than happy to use this issue to burnish her nativist bona fides.

And it’s why President Frank Star Comes Out of the Oglala Sioux Nation has banned Gov. Noem from all tribal lands. President Star Comes Out stated that Gov. Noem represents a danger to the people of the Oglala Sioux Nation and, as such, must be excluded from their lands.

In response, Gov. Noem released a statement in which she said, “I have been working for years to build relationships with our tribes.” And yes, even though she panders to South Dakota’s White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexuals, “[the tribes] are the victim of cartel-driven criminal activity, and they are the victim of inaction by the federal government.”

She went on to say, “I told bipartisan Native American legislators earlier this week, ‘I am not the one with a stiff arm, here. You can’t build relationships if you don’t spend time together.’”

Sure, but you also can’t build relationships when you make it clear you view Brown People as “less than” and are indifferent to their suffering. Native Americans often feel an affinity for those who come to our southern border looking for a better life.

Compassion is not a sign of weakness, and kindness is not a moral failing. If Gov. Noem is indeed the Christian she claims to be, she’d understand that sending razor wire to the Governor of Texas makes her every bit the monster Greg Abbott is.

Precisely what Jesus would do, eh? I think not.

(All of my posts are now public. Any reader financial support will be considered pledges- support that’s greatly appreciated but not required to get to all of my work. I’ll trust my readers to determine if my work is worthy of their financial support and at what level. To those who do offer their support, thank you. It means more than you know.)