Of Dogs and Partisans

What the Noem Anecdote Reveals

My dog Hazel. She would like to lick your ear.

The Kristi Noem dog anecdote raises interesting questions that transcend the usual partisan political warfare, but that ultimately condemn it. A couple quick thoughts, and then I will get to my point du jour. Plus a brief note at the end about imminent changes to how I operate Garden of Words.

First, despite our understandable visceral reactions, the idea of putting a dog out of its misery with a bullet is not foreign to rural America. Some note that it is cruel to stuff an anxiety-riddled dog into a car and drive it an hour or two to a vet, at a time when the dog is already suffering. That's cruel, and it's not how things work on a deeply rural, old school farm. If you have a dog that needs to be put down, you put the dog out of its misery, quickly and without fanfare. This is hard to stomach for many of us (say, me), but it is the correct and humane thing to do. Circumstances matter. Of course, what Kristi Noem did, and was later willing to leverage as a political prop (or at least try to leverage — ooops) was not this. Most rural folks who euthanize their suffering canines do so for noble reasons, and would not boast about it later for political advantage.

Second, unruly dogs generally reflect the owners (or prior owners), not the dogs. Obviously, there are exceptions, most notably some rescues. Anyone who has been around dogs knows they have personalities. But most dogs can be trained to some extent, for better or for worse. We newer dog owners sometimes need to learn this the hard way. My little schnoodle (Hazel, pictured above) barks at everyone who walks down the street, mostly because I never trained it out of her. Fortunately, it's one of her very few irritating habits. And, to be fair, she barks at people because she wants to run out the door, lick their ears and get a tummy rub. Anyway, sure, a rescued dog can have more serious issues, no doubt. But if every dog that someone owns is prone to biting people, it says more about the owner than the dogs.

Third…

A thought experiment: What if Donald Trump included a Noem-like anecdote in a book? Surely you jest, Tom! — Trump would never own a dog, and would lack the requisite skill or fortitude to shoot one if he did. I see your point, but let’s set that aside. In Noem's case, she miscalculated badly -- many folks on the populist right were as appalled as everyone to their left, or at least virtue signaled with the best of ‘em. It was a major political backfire, to the extent that she probably ended her national political career.

Fortunately, Kristi Noem doesn't have the political gravitas to sway the moral compass inside of people. But, of course, some people do generate such an ethical magnetic field. And Donald Trump is one. There is no question that his devotees and disciples would make excuses for him, while some of those same people are okay with excoriating Kristi Noem. The Noem blunder is a free pass to slap some cheap and easy, humanizing PR polish on the brand (i.e., “we like dogs too!”), at the minor expense of one expendable appendage of the movement.

Or maybe some of them just have functioning souls? I don't know. I’m going to discount that hypothesis for now, based on the preponderance of evidence.

I am heading into Lord of the Flies territory here, vs. veering into "whataboutism" shtick — a staple of the partisan toolbox. But, briefly: I’ll just stipulate that obvious examples on the extreme left beg for the whataboutist critique. If you want that, just read the news; e.g., thousands of supposedly intelligent young people — the purported crème de la crème in some cases, though I would argue that — have become anti-Semites, some violent. Could any reasonable American of a certain age have anticipated such a thing? <endofwhataboutistcritique>

Anyway, back to the pig’s head on a stick. Mmmm.

Our civilization has clearly crossed the bridge into a purified form of pragmatism. We wrap it in thin veneers of indignant, contingent faux morality, typically constructed to justify the latest desirable end, the latest fashion accessories of the larger tribe. We will defend just about anything these days, if it means remaining a member in good standing. “Trump shot a dog? Well, who among us hasn’t thought about dispatching an unruly beast, but lacked the fortitude of our Courageous Leader! Hail to the Chief!”

It’s those thin veneers that trouble me, like Oreos in the pantry when I’m on a diet. They are the enabling forces, the Nixonian “plumbers”, the fixers that do the dirty work. Such muscle tends to be disposable, unwilling and unable to bear responsibility for the damage it does. But we have allowed these ideological viruses into a complex ecosystem that is easily disturbed. To the near-sighted, they seem so correct, benign at worst, but sometimes appearing as angels of light. But most are based on feelings, untested by fire. When you sharpen them with history and coherent philosophy, they disintegrate into dust. The respective programs of both the shrill populist right and the dystopian progressive left have no historic or other basis to sustain them. They survive on hatred of the enemies du jour, like an alien in a Star Trek episode, and on the occasional scrap, like Kristi Noem’s memoir gaffe — little bits of fake nutrition that energize the foot soldiers, like so much discarded gum on a city sidewalk.

And so today’s argument in favor of this or that proposition is tomorrow’s sacrifice of a former colleague, as circumstances require. This is what cults of personality and cults of feeling produce. Ask any feminist who is now just a TERF, rejected by her former tribe. Ask any classically liberal conservative, now deemed a tool of the “globalist elite”. We tend to think of today’s state of affairs as the new stable norm. Folks educated in the before times were trained to think that way, because it is the way civilizations existed for ages (literally), until about ten minutes ago. But we no longer have stable norms. Today’s “norm” is whatever one’s chosen cult decides is convenient for today’s power struggle. And societies so structured cannot survive. Because, after all, this is a crusade to stamp out evil, as our cult defines it …for today at least.

Dogs are pack animals. It is difficult to appreciate the pack model of dog behavior until you keep a dog as a pet, and witness how tightly your new pooch will integrate into the “pack” of your household. They become family; they will comfort you when you are down and defend you to the death. Nowadays, the canine pack model works reasonably well for political partisans too. They mostly lay around, consume any superficially compelling garbage that drops to the floor, run after synthetic pull toys, and bark at anything that seems either outside the pack or momentarily inconvenient or threatening.

Woof.

NOTE: Sometime later this week I will be opening all of Garden of Words to free subscribers for a time, probably a long time. Practically speaking, this just means that my ever-expanding online book will be available to all, as opposed to just the first couple chapters. Also, until now, I have tended to not e-mail posts. Going forward, I will be e-mailing new book chapters, and selected other posts that I think might have more general interest. I hope you find the content welcome and worthwhile.