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OPINION

By Opiyo Oloya

This is not a joke. The US presidential election in November 2024 may come down to two things — a dog and a goat. No, the dog and the goat are not candidates in the election. In fact, both the dog and the goat are dead. They were shot dead by their owner in a gravel pit. So, what is going on?

You must start this story in the last US presidential election in November 2020. The incumbent President Donald Trump, a Republican, was fighting to retain the job. His challenger Democratic candidate Joe Biden was intent on wresting the job from him. When the results rolled in, Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.

But instead of accepting defeat, licking his wounds and slinking away into retirement, Trump disputed the elections. He claimed without any shred of evidence that the elections were stolen from him. He wanted to stop the certification of the elections that would declare Biden the winner.

As US tradition requires, election results are certified by Congress at a special sitting chaired by the incumbent vice-president which, in this case, was none other than Trump’s own VP Mr Mike Pence. Trump asked Pence not to certify the election results.

A staunch Christian, Pence refused to obey his boss because, according to Pence, doing what Trump wanted him to do was cheating. And that is not a Christian thing to do.

On January 6, 2021, the day for certifying election results, Trump ordered thousands of his supporters to storm Capitol Hill where Pence was conducting the certification. Pence and other Congress members narrowly escaped being lynched by the enraged mob of Trump supporters. Some people died in the incident, and many more were wounded.

When things calmed down, Pence returned in the evening and, working through the night, certified the election results that declared Biden the winner. Many protesters who stormed Capitol Hill were arrested, successfully prosecuted and sent to jail. Trump, the loser, meanwhile, retreated to his golf resort at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida to plot revenge.

Fast forward four years later. It is 2024, and it is another US presidential election year. The incumbent President Joe Biden is facing his challenger and nemesis former president Donald Trump in the contest. Trump the presumptive Republican nominee will not be asking former vice-president Mike Pence to run with him. The two men don’t speak to one another anymore. Instead, Trump is looking for a vice-presidential running mate. He has hinted that he might choose a woman.

Speculations are that Trump is eyeing the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem as his running mate. She has the credentials.

She is an experienced administrator. She served a term each in the State Legislature and in the US Congress, so she is very familiar with policy processes. She is a strong Christian fundamentalist with impeccable record of advocating abortion bans, supporting gun rights and freedom of speech. It does not hurt that she is telegenic and eloquent.

And that is where the dead dog and the dead goat come in. Governor Noem is scheduled to release a memoir in the coming days titled No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward. Excerpts from the book were published by The Guardian newspaper last week. In the book, Governor Noem narrates about owning a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer hunting dog named Cricket.

According to the story, Cricket was next to useless when it came to hunting. He did all the wrong things. Instead of hunting wild birds, he hunted the neighbour’s chickens, killing them. Everything the dog did was wrong and, in the governor’s own words — I hated that dog! Having had enough with Cricket, Governor Noem decided to solve the problem once and for all. She took Cricket to a gravel pit and shot him to death. After that deed was done, she remembered there was another stubborn animal — a he-goat that smelled bad and was implicated in knocking her children.

She brought the goat to the same gravel pit and shot him too, but the brute did not die right away. Governor Noem fetched another bullet from the truck which did the job.

Both Cricket and the unnamed goat were dead. Just then, Noem’s school-age daughter arrived on the school bus, and asked her mother, “Mom, where is Cricket?”

Obviously, Governor Noem enjoyed telling the story of the dead dog and goat to illustrate that she is not afraid to make tough decisions. Presumably this quality makes her the best choice for vice-president of the United States.

But since the story surfaced last week, American animal lovers, Democrats and Republicans alike, including governors of other US states have been posting on X formerly Twitter pictures with their pet dogs. The message is that Governor Noem is a dog killer and should never be considered for higher office. For his part, Trump has not commented on the dog and the goat murder episode. But as someone who is queasy about blood, Trump is left in the difficult position of choosing Noem as a running mate, and having to face outraged animal lovers who will dog Noem everywhere with placards that read — Dog killer! The episode exposes what is wrong with the US politics today.

There is extreme polarisation, where every action is met with a big howl such that the real issues are forgotten. For instance, nobody is talking about American gun culture. For many Americans, the gun is the solution to every problem. If one encounters a frustrating problem, simply shoot it. Guns are a social problem that continues to fester without anyone being able to tackle it.

And who can forget that the world is literally burning because of climate change, not to mention the many wars that need urgent attention.

There’s the war in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere, but none of them concerns the US policymakers. Everyone is talking about the dead dog and dead goat.

That is the dilemma the former president must navigate — to choose a dog and goat killer as running mate or not. He could lose the election by choosing someone else who is less experienced than Governor Noem. But he sure will have a very hard time winning the election by picking Governor Noem as a running mate.

A Twitter user named Art Candee responding to Governor Noem captured neatly the outrage over the dead animals when she wrote, “You are the most hated person in America right now. Resign!”

Opiyo.oloya@gmail.com Twitter: @Opiyooloya

Dr Opiyo Oloya is the Inaugural Associate Vice-President, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada