As an evangelical Christian who is comfortable blending her faith with her governance, Gov. Kristi Noem is surely familiar with the WWJD abbreviation.
It wouldn’t hurt most of us to shape our lives around the question “What Would Jesus Do?” But as COVID-19 spreads in South Dakota, Noem might want to consider a different interpretation of WWJD: What Would Janklow Do?
A while back on Twitter, I asked that question myself, wondering how the former four-term South Dakota governor, who died in 2012, would have confronted the fear, the confusion, the illness and death tied to COVID-19.
The conclusion of those who knew him was the obvious: He would have acted decisively and creatively, regardless of established policies or procedures or even established laws.
As one lawyer who was very close to Janklow said: “He would have sealed the borders and declared Martial Law, and called it a pretty good start.”
The guy was joking, sort of. But if not sealed borders and Martial Law exactly, Janklow almost certainly would have done something dramatic, probably unexpected.
Does anyone think that a governor who ordered state troopers to block trucks hauling hogs from Canada to South Dakota in order to protect state pork producers would do any less to protect South Dakotans from a deadly disease? He’d probably do a lot more.
A former Republican adviser and strategist who worked with Janklow for many years said this: “He would follow science and make smart decisions. He would shut it down, except for first responders. He would accept or fight any consequences of his actions, but only worry about them when the main fight was won.”
The main fight, of course, is against COVID-19 and for the health and lives of South Dakotans.
Those who knew him best say that if there was a policy or even a law that needed bending in the fight process, he would have been the wrench. But he would have been the brain, too. Janklow was a human wrench with a high IQ.
As somebody who knew and covered Bill Janklow for almost 40 years, I can guarantee you that he would have been telling reporters about “this virus in China” back when it was still thought to be limited to China, or very soon after that.
He would have been reading voraciously about it, hunting for more information and demanding that staffers debrief experts so that he would be better prepared to speak and act on it.
Almost certainly, the coronavirus would have come up at a Janklow press conference sometime early in the year, with comments like: “It’s a virus. It’s different. It kills more people. They don’t have a vaccine or treatment. And it’ll get here. South Dakotans will get sick and die. We’ve got to get ready.”
He might even have included something about the virus in his State of the State address to lawmakers on the first day of session. This year that was Jan. 14, two weeks after health officials in Wuhan, China, reported pneumonia cases that would later be confirmed as caused by a coronavirus. And it was three days after Wuhan officials announced that a 61-year-old man with the virus has died of pneumonia.
What Janklow and Gates had in common
Maybe Janklow’s mention would have simply been a heads up, but probably more than that. He thought big. He thought far out front. He was no Bill Gates, but he thought like Gates thinks in many ways.
And I’m pretty sure Janklow would have noted the warnings five years earlier from Gates about the probability of a devastating epidemic of then-unknown origin that could kill millions. Gates said in 2015 that the world was not prepared for such an epidemic.
Janklow would have noted that and remembered it. He might have researched it, or had his staff research it. Or both. So when he read or heard about the coronavirus for the first time, he would have had at least a response framework in mind. That’s just the way he operated. He looked beyond the limited vision most of us have to see possible solutions.
He also got involved himself. I made a joke on Twitter about Janklow taking state troopers and a bullhorn and clearing out bars across Sioux Falls when people gathered in spite of recommended guidelines. But it wasn’t really much of a joke.
Anybody who knew or covered Janklow — after a tornado, before a blizzard, during a wildfire — remembers him barking orders through a megaphone or two-way radio or clunky early mobile phone at the scene of a disaster or impending calamity. Or he was dashing in and out of mobile command centers set up near the action.
Janklow was inclined to overreact in the way Dr. Anthony Fauci calls upon us to overreact — which, in Fauci’s mind, is reacting the right way, the prudent way, the life-saving way.
And if somebody didn’t like what Janklow was doing or the way he was doing it, that was tough. Threatened with legal action, he commonly answered: “Go ahead, sue me. I’ve got a lot of lawyers.”
One of them was him. And he was pretty good.
It wasn’t a disaster decades ago when South Dakota’s boat ramps on parts of the the Missouri River — sprawling Lake Oahe in particular — were falling apart, or non-existent. But anglers were pouring in from all over the Midwest and beyond to take advantage of some of the world’s best walleye fishing.
Existing boat ramps were crowded, and the scene often contentious. Yelling matches were common, fistfights occasional. An in some instances, anglers were launching or trying to launch boats in areas where it probably wasn’t safe.
Anglers, local business people, tourism promoters were crying out for better ramps and access roads. The state was in a typical money pinch. There were higher priorities. But federal funds for highways were available. So Janklow decided to spend them and access roads and on boat ramps. The feds said he couldn’t. Janklow said he would.
“What’s a boat ramp but a highway that ends in the water,” he said.
You don’t like? He’s got a lot of lawyers. And Janklow’s general belief was that if the law didn’t specifically prohibit the governor from a particular action, he could probably do it. And he probably would, unless or until stopped by a defining court ruling.
After good leadership early in the fight, is Noem now too hesitant?
Boat ramps were simple compared to COVID-19. I know that. Gov. Kristi Noem know it a lot better than I do. She has a lot on her hands. I don’t envy her. And generally I’ve admired the calm, reasonable way she has approached this, listening to the state and federal experts, trying to do what fits for South Dakota in fighting COVID.
She says she was aware of the virus in January, and that the state began its preparations back then. Her public comments came later, however. Research by KELOLAND News found Noem’s first public comment about the virus in late February.
Since then her leadership has been generally admirable. And it was pretty aggressive early on with some important school and other public-facility closures and sports/activities postponements and cancellations. She has become the face of the fight through helpful public-service announcements and regular press conferences with reporters.
Noem also has urged people to maintain social distancing and stay home as much as possible and offered guidelines and directions to businesses. But she has generally stopped short of Janklow-style orders that governors in a majority of other states have issued.
Noem has been criticized for that by some, supported by others. This week for the first time I wondered if she was moving too slow, with too much deference to economic impacts and not enough to the “overreaction” aimed at saving lives.
I understand she’s in a state with wide-open spaces, gaps between population centers, a low number of identified COVID-19 cases and relatively few serious illness and deaths. So far. And the growth of cases hasn’t blown up as I feared it might. Yet.
Noem’s arguments are rational enough. She’s right that one-size regulations usually don’t fit all. Lemmon isn’t New York City, as she said, nor is South Dakota California. And “herd-mentality” orders are not leadership, most of the time.
Much is being done already in the state by people voluntarily staying home, businesses voluntarily closing or changing to safer operations, people shopping more carefully and maintaining safer distances. Our schools remain closed
It’s possible what we’ve done already has helped slow the spread and save lives. Noem deserves some credit for that.
And Noem suggests that the COVID-19 peak in South Dakota could still be weeks or months away. So it makes sense, she says, to create a responsible lifestyle that’s as safe as possible, with as few government orders as possible, something that can be sustained long term.
And maybe she’s right. I hope so. Noem told reporters during a news Thursday that the National Guard will erect additional hospital space to prepare for the increase in COVID cases. That’s good and wise. She also said she has encouraged hospitals in South Dakota to “over prepare” for the higher levels of infections ahead. Good and wise, too.
Over preparing is the right thing, but are we there?
But listening to Noem on public radio, I had to wonder: Is the state over prepared? Is Noem following her own advice? I hope so. Because if this disease gets away, if it explodes in places like Sioux Falls or Rapid City, it will define Noem’s administration and, more importantly, shatter families across the state.
That possibility is frightening. And it has me, once again, coming back to WWJD — What Would Janklow Do? That’s probably unfair to Noem. But she’s in an unfair job at an especially unfair time. And comparisons to Janklow, the noted crisis manager, are part of it.
Janklow wasn’t perfect, either in the way he lived or the way he governed. Far from it. And he didn’t handle crises perfectly. Sometimes he was unduly heavy handed. Sometimes he was wrong-headed. Sometimes he overreacted beyond even what Anthony Fauci might consider “overreacting” to a reasonable, live-saving degree.
But most times most reasonable people praised him for his actions. And he was rarely accused of not doing enough or delaying action. He was usually out front, usually well informed, sometimes to a scholarly level. And he was always decisive, usually without fear of threatened consequences
Janklow would have blasted federal officials, fought with them, carped at them, complained about them, and gotten as much as he could out of them. He would have touted the need for local control. Then, without noting the irony, he would have imposed “local” control across the state from his office in the Capitol, when he wasn’t out yelling at people to “go home,” that is.
And if Janklow had asked the South Dakota Legislature to give state and local officials more temporary authority in the fight against a dangerous virus, I’m pretty sure he would have gotten it. Woe to those who resisted.
I don’t know exactly what Janklow would have done in this situation. But I’m almost certain it would have been more than we’re doing now. And that’s something we might all want to consider as we watch the COVID cases creep up here in South Dakota.
And also as we hope, as I do, that this governor’s approach is the right one.
