It’s probably safe to say that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem will run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. I know this because the New York Times just did one of its predictable here’s-a-popular-Republican-who-screwed-up-during-the-pandemic hit pieces.

Most of the national media’s hatred has been saved for Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida for having declined to throw his state into perpetual economic lockdown and still managing to keep Florida’s death rate well below that of its blue-state peers. But the New York Times on Wednesday took time to aim north, publishing a six-minute video purporting to demonstrate “How Gov. Kristi Noem rebranded her failures as ‘freedom.'”