Politics
The Political Key To Every American’s Hearts
The only thing we can all agree on.
If you are one of the lucky ones who has yet to hear, South Dakota Governor: Kristi Noem, recently released an autobiography in which she detailed shooting her fourteen month old puppy. She was once close to the top of Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s list of potential VPs but since the book came out she has plummeted steadily and surely off of the list. She was once so close in the running that Trump displayed, allegedly by mistake, a “TRUMP NOEM 2024” sign briefly flashed on a billboard in a rally in Noem’s homestate of South Dakota.
However in a recent list of candidates the Trump campaign had vetted to be the 2024 VP candidate, leaked to the AP, lacked Noem’s name entirely, proving she is completely out of the running. Her being a woman, a group which the Republican party is quickly losing and having executive experience poised her as a top choice from most pundits and myself (I ranked her as the second best choice for the Trump campaign). Her rapid, fiery downfall since her comments about her puppy made me wonder about what i’m now calling: the political key to every American’s hearts.
Throughout the world, people love puppies — they are ‘man’s best friend’ for a reason — and Americans are no different, right? They’re cute, they’re fluffy and engrossingly friendly. There is very little that everyone, in any country, especially the US, can agree on but I’d argue that loving puppies is one that most people can heartily get behind. YouGov polls showed about 46% of American adults owned a dog, 90% of pet owners saw their pets as part of their family and 55% of pet owners would spend over 1000$ to save their pet’s life. It’s not just pet owners as well, according to Politico, 84% of Americans like or love dogs and who couldn’t? The Pew research centre ran a poll which showed that 55% of US adults think that the federal government’s actions protecting animals are insufficient, despite there being no major scandals with the Biden administration and animal rights.
There doesn’t even seem to be any difference on political ID and pet ownership either, Democrats and men are slightly less likely to own a pet, Republicans and Trump voters are slightly more likely to have positive opinions about dogs with both being around 90%. With the difference between them being well within the margin of error. The only difference being white people were about 30% more likely to like dogs than black people with hispanics floating around the middle of both. Family income and age seemed to also have negligible effects on if they like dogs or not with the range being only around 10%.
Puppies are one of the few unifiers in our country, white people, black people, poor people, rich people, from younger to older, everyone loves puppies. So, when Kristi Noem shot her fourteen month old healthy puppy, people were frankly and rightly outraged. After learning of her puppy-murdering actions, only 14% of Americans thought she’d be a good choice for Vice President, even self identified “very conservative” voters were evenly split on it and the vast majority, at 80%, of 2020 Trump voters don’t want her on the ticket. 81% of Americans disapprove of her action and even a plurality of people who don’t like dogs disapprove. It’s abundantly clear, even in the confusing world of politics, puppy killing is bad.
Everyone loves puppies. She once was the number one choice for Trump’s VP, a large honour and a major national position but swiftly fell from grace. For some reason, Kristi Noem thought something ‘inconsequential’ like a puppy’s life didn’t matter and the union, seemingly ever-divided, appears to have united against her actions — all motivated by the political key to every American’s hearts: puppies.
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