Fresh off posing before Venezuelans shipped to an El Salvador prison – which is a war crime – part-time DHS head and “embarrassment to hair extensions” Kosplay Kristi Noem just posed with ICE thugs in Arizona prepping to “get (some) dirtbags off the street.” Rocking yet another Nazi outfit – “Every day is Halloween for this lady” – alas she also cradled a rifle aimed at one of the thug’s heads. Also, shouldn’t she be in D.C. trying not to deport the wrong people? Asking for many friends.
Elect a reality TV hack, get a reality TV government, with plenty of dress-up to distract the poorly educated. Cue Kristi Noem, former South Dakota Snow Queen, college dropout, wife, mother, rancher, Nazi, cosmetically enhanced aspiring Instagram model, bimbette attention-seeker and America’s reigning Queen of Cosplay. As governor, Noem earned the name Barnyard Barbie from alarmed constituents for her COVID denialism, and all nine of the state’s indigenous tribes banned her from their lands after suggesting tribal leaders were colluding with and profiting from Mexican drug cartels. Now she’s evidently found her odious peeps with the current Best-In-Show regime, where she’s stayed busy playing make-believe, always elaborately coiffed and made-up, from riding a horse (Border Barbie) to wrangling hoses (Firefighting Barbie): “Different action outfit for every day of the week.”
Last month, in one week, she flew sat in the cockpit of a Lockheed C-130 surveillance plane out of the Coast Guard base in Alaska, joined a Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team on the water out of California (“Always ready”), rode a four-wheeler along the border wall at Nogales, tagged along to a (staged?) cocaine bust at San Diego’s San Ysidro Port of Entry, complete with K-9 dogs who seemed nervous near her puppy-killing vibes. The packed photo-op schedule left observers suggesting DOGE look into what we’re spending on her costume changes; others wondered when she’ll unveil her limited-edition line of action figures or at least a Baywatch ICE Barbie doll, argued the dog-and-pony shows likely meant the workers couldn’t really work, noted her “hair, makeup, and wardrobe team is logging a lot of miles,” and helpfully added, “There’s an opening for a pole dancer in Las Vegas.”
Her most infamous piece of political theater was her March appearance, complete with $60,000 gold Rolex, fitted French shirt tuck, “pound of makeup smeared across her plasticized face” and ball-cap on her mismatched hair extensions, before hundreds of Venezuelan prisoners in a brutal El Salvador prison we’re using to disappear enemies of her regime. Behind her, the inmates stand silent, unmoving, hands at their sides or clasped in front of them, with others further back “stacked like cordwood” on metal bunks, posed by their jailers, “every piece of this visual carefully engineered, a staged display of dominance to thrill the base, to dominate, isolate, terrorize, power over law, cruelty as spectacle.” Noem “pauses in front of a cage where human beings have been posed to her liking,” and sends her vicious message to “criminal illegal aliens: LEAVE NOW. If you do not leave, we will hunt you down.”
Many observed that what Noem did – using prisoners’ bodies as weapons of political war – is a crime against humanity that violates international law under Articles 13 and 14 of the Geneva Convention, which protects prisoners from “insult (and) public curiosity.” They also noted such abuse is unsurprising from a cabal of hacks for whom deportations, like much else, are largely about optics. Still, they argued, democracies have standards of treatment for prisoners; they also have due process and legal pathways for those seeking refuge, and blasted Noem as a vile bitch, an evil ghoul, a Sturmabteilung (storm trooper) “making a dominatrix video for her Nazi audience.” The Bulwark‘s Jonathan Last was blunt on the “Stasi-like DHS kidnappings and gulag photo-op. The message: America is no longer a shining city on a hill… It no longer stands on the side of liberty. This is the land of wolves now.”
That became even more tragically true when researchers at CBS’ 60 Minutes found no criminal records for 75% of the Venezuelan migrants the U.S. arbitrarily scooped up into an El Salvador prison; 22% had records of non-violent crimes like traffic offenses; just 3% were maybe gang members – in sharp contrast to the likely 75% of officials who targeted brown people in their ugly, deadly stunt who have or should have criminal records. Despite the gross illegality – and their bullshit about “waste” – the regime reportedly plans to spend an obscene $45 billion over the next two years – more than double what USAID ever spent each year, and over ten times what ICE spent on all its 2024 detention operations – ramping up private prisons and concentration camps to hold all the people they hope to deport, including innocents “accidentally” scooped up: “These things happen, too bad, so sad.”
Meanwhile, Queen of Cosplay Kristi ‘Lookit-me’ Noem is still at it. On Tuesday, she surfaced “all dolled up on the streets of Phoenix, with flak jacket, full hair and makeup and, of course, that $50K Rolex, looking like she was ready to storm the city (Ballistic Barbie).” As usual, she posted a video. “Here we are with Marco and Brian today,” she prattled, standing between two beefy ICE goons. “They’re letting me roll with them…We’re going to go out and pick up somebody who I think is…got charges of human trafficking.” Then she praised “the good work they do every day…working to make America safe.” Alas, as she spoke, “Racism Barbie with Puppy-Murdering Action Rifle” was in fact extremely unsafely, also laughably awkwardly, holding her M4 rifle pointed at the head of the tatted, bicep-bulging guy on her left. Sorry, we don’t know if it was Marco or Brian; these white supremacists all look alike.
After 100 agents found three victims, she posted, “Human traffickers. Drug Smugglers….(We’re) arresting these dirtbags and getting them off of (sic) our streets.” But safe gun owners were horrified by her clueless “fascism on parade. Never hold your gun like this.” Arizona Rep/ former Marine Ruben Gallego: “1. Close your ejection port. 2. If you have no rounds in the chamber why do you have a magazine inserted? 3. Why are you flagging the guy next to you? 4. Stop deporting people without due process.” Others: “That’s what happens when you want the clothes but don’t live the life,” “Conservatives need a distinct aesthetic, but (the) Bukele visual isn’t it,” “This way she doesn’t actually have to do her job,” “Were any dogs killed?” “It’s a community theater production of a government,” “Nazi Barbie Fun Fact: The end with the hole is the shooty end,” “This is very Plan 9 from Outer Space,” and from a guy at a legal non-profit, “If Secretary Noem personally shoots or arrests you (or your dog), please email me.” It takes a village.
This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.