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Dusty Johnson Saves TAR Campers, Evens Snake Score with Krebs

South Dakota’s Congressional delegation has no courage to stand up to the country’s worst political snake, but at least one of candidates seeking to join our D.C. delegation has the courage to kill a real snake… with an axe!

Dusty Johnson is out leading Teenage Republicans Camp at Rimrock Camp in the Black Hills. This video from his Congressional campaign Twitter account shows him whacking a rattlesnake and then displaying the truncated creature to campers who sound alternately terrified, delighted, and, in one case, hungry.

Johnson grasps the political metaphor:

“When I ask voters what they’re looking for in somebody running for Congress, they always say they want somebody who’s going to fight for them,” Johnson said. “And I don’t know that there are literal rattlesnakes in Washington, D.C., but metaphorically there are hundreds” [Seth Tupper, “Second Rattlesnake Killed in South Dakota’s US House Race,” Rapid City Journal, 2017.07.27].

Johnson’s herpeticide comes less than one year after his now-primary opponent Secretary of State Shantel Krebs famously dispatched a rattler at her Bad River hacienda with her pistol:

Because the Republican Party has turned our politics into tawdry reality TV, let’s see who wins the snake-killing primary:

  • Video: Johnson’s video is clearly superior, showing the actual moment of conflict, man versus beast, and his triumphant hoisting of the still-warm and oozing corpse. Krebs offers a cold, derattled critter and rather subdued post-game commentary.
  • Setting: Krebs was the lone woman on the prairie, defending herself in the absence of her husband. Johnson was the manly man rushing headlong the defend frightened children. Advantage Johnson.
  • Verifiability: In an info-nihilist era when anyone can shout “Fake News!” to avoid actually evaluating evidence or (heavens forfend!) surrendering one’s prejudices, verifiability may not matter. But consider: Johnson’s video doesn’t appear to show the snake moving, so some camp prankster could have planted a dead snake to create an uproar. However, Johnson has witnesses with cameras and blood on the axe in his hands. Krebs has a body but no witnesses, no ballistics, nothing that proves beyond her word that she killed her snake. Johnson and Krebs both could be faking news, but Johnson’s presentation has more affirming evidence.
  • Weapon: With a crowd of children who could have been hit by a ricochet, Johnson put others’ safety above his own and reached for the axe, a weapon that put him within literal striking distance of his deadly foe. It’s harder to recover one’s posture and retreat from a swing and a miss than from a shoot and a miss. However, in a Republican world where there ain’t nothin’ hotter than a woman handling a phallic symbol, Johnson’s ax-ploit undermines the GOP-NRA narrative that guns will solve all of our problems.

On those criteria, Johnson beats Krebs in the snakepit 3 to 1.

Meanwhile, Democratic House candidate Tim Bjorkman spent his career as a judge putting snakes in prison for long, long times.

10 Comments

  1. grudznick 2017-07-28 10:11

    “Still warm and oozing” vs “cold and derattled”?

    Maybe “still oozing” vs “derattled”

  2. Roger Cornelius 2017-07-28 14:11

    In the course of my life I have killed two rattlesnakes, does that qualify me to be senator?

  3. mike from iowa 2017-07-28 15:29

    Have either Johnson or Krebs castrated pigs? Might as well toss Grudz into that mix as well. If you are any good at it, one person-one pig combat. Mano y mano. Live dangerously.

  4. grudznick 2017-07-28 16:50

    Firearm, bladed weapon, bludgeoning rock, or pokey stick, Mr. C?

  5. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-07-28 20:06

    Among your many other qualifications, Roger, yes!

    Castration? Ah, the Joni Ernst test. Domesticated animals only count half the points you get for tackling wild venomous beasts.

  6. grudznick 2017-07-28 21:03

    Perhaps Mr. Dusty castrated this venomous, warm, wild beast, before its body got cold. With an axe! That, sir, is a castration!

  7. Adam 2017-07-28 21:34

    A shovel? What does Dusty have against guns?

    All I care about is who can drink a gallon of whiskey and still make it home safe at night as that’s the kind of skill you’ve got to develop if you truly want to represent South Dakota in the nation’s capital.

  8. grudznick 2017-07-28 21:46

    Mr. Adam, do they really drive cars in DC and then not have drivers and such to haul them around? I think Mr. Dusty could not come close to a gallon of whiskey, he’s a slight and athletic fellow about the size of Mr. H. Two fingers and a bottle of diet Coca-cola would end him for the night. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  9. barry freed 2017-07-29 08:21

    Is there no professional courtesy; isn’t it customary to just kick it out of the party for making noise?
    (an obvious joke that could be applied equally to democrats)

    If you get bit by a Rattler that did not buzz before striking, it is because people who kill rather than capture and release elsewhere, are evolving Rattlers with no tails. A ten year old kid can safely catch a Rattler. We sometimes played catch with them as the actual capture was uneventful. The cheering makes the ten year old in me laugh. Instead of killing them and calling ourselves heros, we sold them to Reptile Gardens for $3 per pound; along with frogs with which to feed them. Both of those baby snakes would have been: “also rans” in the snake bag, but their deaths would have been met with derision over the wastefulness. $3 bought a new HO car, three boxes of .22 ammo, or a bunch of Cokes and candy bars.

    Politicians should not wear tank helmets, ride horses, nor kill things, it reveals how wimpy they are.

    Like a Trump twitter, one will never know where, or when, they will be bit by a cold blooded creature crawling on its belly and reacting to warmth.
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=216924322

  10. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-07-29 10:45

    Interesting evolutionary observation, Barry! (Plus, the NPR story you link quotes Bonny Fleming!) By killing rattlers, we give an advantage to the less polite mutants that would kill us without warning.

    I’ve encountered three rattlers in my travels. In each case, I was alone and moving fast enough that I felt no need to kill the critters. I also was not carrying either an axe or a pistol.

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