When Kristi Noem admitted in her memoir earlier this year that she shot and killed her own puppy, “Cricket,” because she found the dog inconvenient, the public reacted with a wave of shock that briefly dominated headlines. And then, as with so many stories involving harm to vulnerable beings, the moment passed. A few memes circulated, a few defenses were offered, and then the national conversation moved on.
But the story is resurfacing again — quietly, in posts, comments, and reminders from everyday people who still feel the wrongness of it. That resurfacing is not a coincidence. It reflects a deeper discomfort with where American political culture has drifted: toward a place where cruelty is not simply tolerated but marketed as toughness, authenticity, and leadership.
The Noem story is not about a single puppy. It is about a political identity built on domination.
A Leader Who Bragged About Cruelty — and a Culture That Was Willing to Look Away
Kristi Noem didn’t confess this story in shame. She included it in her book as an example of decisive leadership. That framing alone should have sparked a national ethical reckoning.
Instead, the reaction fractured along predictable lines:
• outrage from those who saw an innocent life ended for convenience,
• silence or deflection from her allies,
• and a troubling cultural shrug from the broader political class.
The question is not simply, “Why did she do it?”
The deeper question is:
Why was she so confident the public would admire her for it?
That confidence reveals something dangerous about the American psyche — a longstanding link between cruelty and strength, between domination and political legitimacy.
Cruelty as Political Branding: A Larger American Problem
The puppy was the flashpoint. But the pattern is older and wider:
• Politicians posing with dead animals as campaign images.
• Legislators celebrating hunting deregulation as “heritage.”
• Leaders standing in slaughterhouses promising “more meat, more profit.”
• Officials treating vulnerable lives — human or nonhuman — as expendable symbols.
This is not a partisan issue. It’s a cultural one.
American political storytelling has long relied on the idea that a “real leader” is someone willing to harm. Willing to kill. Willing to discard those who are difficult, inconvenient, or powerless. Whether it’s wildlife, companion animals, factory-farmed animals, migrants, prisoners, or protestors — the logic is the same:
If you can harm without hesitation, you must be strong. If you hesitate, you must be weak.
Kristi Noem’s story didn’t create this culture.
It exposed it.
What We Ignore Reveals Who We Are
When people say “we don’t talk about this enough,” they’re not asking to rehash the scandal. They’re naming a deeper truth:
We live in a country where cruelty is so normalized that even the killing of a puppy becomes a two-day news cycle.
If an infant had been killed because it was “too much work,” the country would never stop talking about it.
But because the victim was a dog — a sentient, emotional being who trusted the person who ended her life — the outrage was rationed, analyzed, and ultimately filed away.
This is species hierarchy at work: a system that teaches us some lives matter deeply, others matter less, and still others are disposable.
Noem’s story was shocking.
The way we moved on from it was more shocking still.
A Mirror Held Up to America
The Humane Party has long warned that a society comfortable with violence against nonhuman animals will eventually tolerate violence everywhere else — policy violence, cultural violence, institutional violence.
The puppy was not an isolated tragedy.
It was a case study.
A mirror.
A moment when America glimpsed the moral cost of its own conditioning — and then blinked.
The Ethical Question the Nation Still Hasn’t Answered
This story keeps resurfacing because something in the public conscience refuses to let it rest. It lingers because people recognize, even if they cannot articulate it, that this is not just about what one politician did but what our politics has become.
So the real question is not:
“Why did Kristi Noem kill a puppy?”
The real question is:
“When did America start celebrating the kind of leader who would?”
And deeper still:
“What else — and who else — do we excuse when cruelty is framed as strength?”
Until we answer those questions honestly, we will continue handing power to those who mistake brutality for leadership and moral numbness for resolve.
The puppy deserved better.
Our country does too.
The Humane Herald 