This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
Mike Card, Ph.D., takes a close look at the language Gov. Kristi Noem uses and its effects. Particularly, he explores the potential impacts of calling the situation at the U.S. southern border a warzone.
Plus, he offers his analysis of Sen. Jessica Castleberry's resignation in light of the original intent of South Dakota's conflict of interest laws.
Dr. Card is a political scientist and professor emeritus at the University of South Dakota.
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Lori Walsh:
I'm having a good time here with Mike Card, who is a professor of political science and professor emeritus at the University of South Dakota. He is our Dakota Political Junkie voice for today, but not just a voice, a whole person here, including a tie and a nice button-down shirt. Welcome. Thank you.
Mike Card:
I'm happy to be here, and it at least gives me an excuse twice a week to get dressed up.
Lori Walsh:
To get cleaned up. You clean up? Good. All right.
You sent me an email, and you mentioned this idea of an American mythology and some of the stories that we hear from our governor, other people, of course, too, but our governor comes to mind about what it means to be an American and how adversity plays into that. So I want to get your thoughts a little bit, but we haven't talked about this before the show, and I thought of a couple things that came to my mind.
So we're going to play a quick clip here, which you've heard before on the show when I discussed this with Seth Tupper of South Dakota Searchlight. He wrote about it in his opinion column on that website as well.
But this is Gov. Kristi Noem at the NRA convention, and she's telling a story about her father. Take a listen.
Kristi Noem:
So I remember being only about 9 or 10 years old, and we had hunted all day miles and miles from camp in the high country in the Bighorn Mountains when my dad turned to me and he said, "Kristi, hunt your way back to camp. I'm going to go around this ridge and I'll meet you there at dark." And he disappeared over the ridge.
Now, to a 10-year-old girl, this was terrifying. And as strange noises came and darkness fell, I had to rely on my instincts and my horse to find my way back to our tent. Now, years later, mom shared with me that my dad had followed me at a safe distance all the way back to camp to make sure that I got there safe.
Now, before you get all warm and fuzzy on him, I also want to tell you that he made bear noises the whole time he was following me, scratching trees and growling at me. So he made sure I lived, but he wanted me to be a little scared, but he made me stronger, and it also made me realize that I could conquer challenges that were put in front of me.
Lori Walsh:
All right. I've come back to that story a few times, partially because she tells it so well. I mean, it's a memorable story. You can tell the crowd is into the story. It feels a little bit like a South Dakota story. A lot of us had parents who would do sort of strange things that we see differently when we're adults. But as a governor, as a member of Congress, this takes on a sort of different thing because it becomes an origin story, and it becomes almost mythic in its proportions.
Mike Card:
Yeah, I think it's part of Kristi Noem's personal origin story that this is part of what made her who she is. And I think that she takes that as part of her identity and has made policies according to that.
I'll call it a mythology, not because it's a falsehood but because it's a myth. Myths were designed by our ancestors to try to teach us differences between right and wrong. Political scientists call it political culture, but certainly, I would believe that we deal with adversity because heroic individuals bravely fight against injustice to overcome adversity. And I think that's one of Kristi Noem's defining characteristics. And it has led itself in terms of slight offshoots to what Mike Rounds put forward as one of the essential tenets of government was to take care of people who couldn't take care of themselves.
Now, sometimes that gets altered slightly to be who should take care of themselves but don't, and then we use that to deny benefits to certain people. But for a large part, these mythologies are broad enough that we can be motivated by them, and they tell us what right from wrong is in terms of action.
Lori Walsh:
I want to play another clip, and I'm going to ask you a question as if I was a student in your classroom because I am in your classroom right now.
Mike Card:
Do I get to turn it around like I do in my classroom?
Lori Walsh:
Absolutely. This is a little bit of Gov. Kristi Noem on the U.S. southern border earlier this month, talking about the problems with the border there. Take a listen here.
Kristi Noem:
And what we're literally witnessing is a warzone. And it's astonishing to me to watch it perpetuated by our federal government and by President Biden when I sent my National Guard because I recognized what we were facing. That this really is a war. It's a war for our country, and for our federal laws that have been passed in our Constitution, they are threatening our sovereignty right now.
Lori Walsh:
All right, so my question to you, Mike Card, and this is not the first time Gov. Kristi Noem has said, "What's happening at the U.S. southern border is a war. It is a warzone."
When I hear her—I'm the student, now you're the professor—telling the story about her bear and her father. There is no bear in that story, and she admits that she knows that as an adult, when we hear the same person, the same voice tell us there is a crisis, there is a war, there is a whatever. Do we tend then, as the people who are following her say, "Is there really a bear or are you making scratching noises here?"
Where is the line between political leaders beyond Gov. Kristi Noem stirring up awareness and outrage and raising money and getting votes and trying to solve policy problems, which they all do, and just trying to scare us? And when do we start doubting that someone is telling us the truth? There's a lot in that question, but I think you can find something relevant there.
Mike Card:
When I was at my best as an instructor, I would turn that question around and say, "If what we're looking for is, what does she mean by these terms that we should take action on what is a warzone?" And so when we're looking at what is a warzone, we can compare it.
I'm a child of World War II veterans. Both of my parents are buried in national cemeteries. My father was awarded a silver star. And a warzone meant you were being shot at, and he was a spotter pilot who flew at treetop levels, so he got shot at a lot. That's a warzone. That's my recollection of what a warzone is. The border, as put forward, suggested this isn't a warzone. This isn't Ukraine. This is a group of people who are fleeing troublesome places and trying to come to the United States for sanctuary.
So when we look at what's the difference between those competing interpretations of a situation, we can see that there are drugs coming across the border. Although the Border Protection Service indicates that most of them are coming across in trucks, actual trucks, not people bringing them across because that would take quite a few but there is a crisis situation at the border because there are many more people wanting entrance into the United States than law allows. But we also have a Congress who has to change the law according to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Congress is pretty well deadlocked. So the warzone exists in multiple places. I'm still not getting at your question, which is, "When do we move from mythology to reality?" And for many of us, the distinction is really subtle because it's a useful metaphor.
Lori Walsh:
So I may have just Googled earlier today, "is the U.S. southern border a warzone?" to find out what people were saying about this, and a lot of people were like, "It's a pseudo-war zone. It's an imagined war zone. It's a mock war zone." Because of hyper-militarization. So there were a lot of, I guess I would classify them as on the opposite political spectrum as our governor saying this whole labeling it something matters. So as a political scientist, we can't come to a common definition of what a war zone is here, probably, but if we can, what does that change, that change funding, that change the application of the Constitution on the southern border?
What does it change if you start believing that something is a warzone?
Mike Card:
Well, if we believe it is a warzone, then we have to do something about it. And the implication of it being a warzone is we are being invaded. And certainly, that was language that President Trump and his compatriots in his administration wanted us to believe, that there were tens of thousands of people moving across Mexico trying to get in the southern border. In total, that may be the case, but again, facts matter. And when we run into these interpretations that they're trying to get us to act in a certain way, what choices do we have? If there's an invasion, we need to repel the invasion, which gives credence to building a wall, although the wall is certainly penetrable.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. So if you were arguing for Gov. Noem's point, you would say that it's not so much that the innocent people, the enemy here is the cartels.
Mike Card:
Right.
Lori Walsh:
And they're using these innocent people to push over the border and do damage to the U.S. sovereignty. Does that change the conversation at all?
Mike Card:
Well, I think that's part of the attempt to change the conversation from the one that the presentation sister was trying to made, that these are victims.
Lori Walsh:
And refugees.
Mike Card:
And refugees.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. These are refugees, not enemy.
Mike Card:
Right.
Lori Walsh:
Combatants for sure.
Mike Card:
Well.
Lori Walsh:
Nothing's for sure.
Mike Card:
Nothing is for sure.
Lori Walsh:
I retract for sure.
Mike Card:
Well, there are various ways that we have of looking at what our government should do. If we're looking at the climate crisis, we're looking at what some historians have called cornucopians, individuals who believe that human ingenuity will overcome the barriers of the changing climate, and we'll figure out a way to make energy be clean-burning, and we can continue on as we have continued in the past, and just technology and human ingenuity, inventing new technology, will save us. Finitarians were like Thomas Malthus that, "Oh my gosh, things are terrible. We have to do something about this in the climate changes is we need to keep the temperature from rising."
Lori Walsh:
Is there a bear, or is there no bear?
Mike Card:
That's right. That's really it.
Lori Walsh:
And it goes back to what you said before, facts.
Mike Card:
Facts.
Lori Walsh:
Facts matter at this point. Mythology helps tell the stories, helps make it memorable, but it's the facts that matter. I want to touch on one more thing, and I know we're going to leave that in a super unsatisfying place for everyone.
But send us an email inthemoment@sdpb.org and answer this question: How do you define a warzone? And is that what you think is happening at the U.S. southern border, and how does it impact us? I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Okay. Jessica Castleberry, senator from District 35. I wanted to get your thoughts on this story not being over. Can you explain in a sentence what happened to Jessica Castleberry with federal COVID money that she received for her daycare?
Attorney General Marty Jackley did an investigation. She should not have gotten that money. She has reached an agreement. She's been very cooperative, reached an agreement to pay back that money because it was not supposed to go to her because she was a lawmaker.
Mike Card:
That's correct.
Lori Walsh:
Now all the money that made it through her to people in need, they get to keep that money, as I understand it. But there is a big question mark about lawmakers and conflict of interest. What's next in this story, do you think?
Mike Card:
Well, this is a constitutional provision, Article 3, Section 12, that specifically prohibits lawmakers from benefiting, I'm interpreting here, from benefiting from legislation that they pass. It's specifically designed to prevent dealing with yourself. This was a very common practice with lawmakers in our territorial days. So when our Constitution makers were drafting a Constitution for the state of South Dakota, they included this provision in their, to prevent even the appearance of self-dealing.
Now, as you noted, Senator Castleberry apparently requested an opinion from the governor's office about whether she could apply for these funds as a legislator and was apparently told yes, or at least she still applied for the funds and received them. Gov. Noem, most recently, made a referral to the attorney general, who conducted an investigation of which you said Sen. Castleberry was fully participative and cooperative, is what the attorney general said in the investigation.
And they reached an agreement that she would pay back a large portion of the funds, not necessarily those that had been paid to her employees of her daycare center. Okay. I mean, that's a long and complicated story, but it isn't over by any means because there's been reporting done, that there are a number of legislators who have also benefited from this distribution of federal funds. And these include two members whose spouses are state employees, because the Constitution says that you can't benefit directly or indirectly.
And that indirectly also captured in its net, another state legislator whose spouse runs a program for the state of South Dakota and therefore receives an appropriation. Now, was it specifically designed for them by law? Not necessarily, just as the salaries of the spouses weren't specifically designated for those individuals by law, but there was an appropriations law that then makes it so that you shouldn't be voting on issues that benefit you directly or indirectly. What does indirectly mean? And so the legislature may try to define what indirectly means, but this will probably be settled by lawsuit.
Lori Walsh:
Because to this point, having it decided by the lawmakers, the intent of this is that lawmakers aren't, they might decide. If you were going to be skeptical, you'd say they might not decide, they're going to decide for their own benefit, possibly, is what you would be skeptical and say, or you want to guard against. In fairness.
Mike Card:
I mean, that's the meaning of that particular section is to avoid self-dealing. So anything that looks like self-dealing is going to be seen as self-dealing.
Lori Walsh:
Now somebody out there is saying, "This is a citizen legislature, they all have full-time jobs."
Everybody knows everybody in the state. It's a small state. There's going to be a certain amount of streams crossing here and there and everywhere. I'm not sure I accept that as a free pass for anybody, but this is important stuff to figure out exactly what is right and what is wrong.
Mike Card:
Right. And the determinant of what's right and wrong is ultimately going to be the South Dakota Supreme Court. So I guess that's why I'm saying that there's a lawsuit, which may or may not change the court's interpretation. I mean, this has been around a long time, 1920, the most recent to have been 2001 with Pitts vs. Larson, whereas an employee of the South Dakota State Extension Service was a member of the South Dakota legislature and wanted to be paid. And auditor Vern Larson said, "No, there's this constitutional provision." That's what an auditor does, determine the legality of expenditures, at least in South Dakota. That's their primary job.
And then in 2001, Gov. Noem asked for an advisory opinion of the South Dakota Supreme Court, which is a unique provision that Illinois and South Dakota have that you can ask the Supreme Court to advise you for solemn matters. And this is certainly a solemn matter whether legislators could receive that early COVID relief money, and they said, "No, no, you cannot." So where we're at is, it's going to be back in their hands. How it gets there is the real question.
Lori Walsh:
All right, Mike Card, professor emeritus from the University of South Dakota, political scientists, one of our really smart and brilliant Dakota Political Junkies.
