The COVID-19 pandemic was a stark reminder about just how much it matters who our leaders are. Governors across the nation shut their states down. Without batting an eye, they took away their people’s Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and Freedom of Assembly. Many Americans were understandably scared, but they were also bullied to give up their rights in the name of “science.”

Too many have now tried to rewrite history and claim they weren’t part of those attacks on us, our individual decisions, or our Freedoms.

Fortunately, that was never our story in South Dakota. 

South Dakota was the only state in America that never shut down. As Governor, I never ordered a single business or church to close. I never tried to mandate anything. Instead, I prioritized providing our people with information. Then, I trusted them to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. 

It seemed like the obvious decision to me because that was the constitutional one. It was very clear at the time that there was no constitutional authority to lock down my state. Yet, every single day the liberal media kicked me in the head for standing up for the rights of South Dakotans. They called me the “COVID Queen,” they accused me of killing people, and they criticized me for being the only leader making these decisions.  

Let me tell you something I’ve learned – if the media doesn’t like what you’re doing, it probably means you’re doing the right thing. 

We absolutely made the right decisions throughout the pandemic. Because we kept our state open, South Dakota is thriving today. We were the only state to say “no thanks” when the President offered extended unemployment benefits – because I knew they would come could with massive strings attached. Our people, instead, kept working – and we broke the national record for the lowest statewide unemployment rate. But we still had thousands of open jobs, so we started recruiting Freedom-loving Americans to move to South Dakota. Our population has grown at three-times the national average. We’ve implemented common-sense conservative policies that allow families to keep more of their hard-earned dollars. We are one of only a few states in the country whose mental health challenges and suicide rates are going down. And we have the highest birth rate in America. People are happy here!

That, of course, is not the story the media will tell you. Even after all the facts have emerged, even with all the data, liberal so-called “journalists” are still trying to paint our decisions as the wrong ones. Just a few days ago I was on a television show where an individual lied about the results of the good decisions we made in our state.  This person cited incorrect data, and I, of course, swiftly provided this individual with the accurate information.  They apologized for their mistake.

But the larger problem here is not that I had a confrontational interview, or that the media doesn’t believe what we did here actually worked to make us successful. The real issue is that these people are trying to rewrite history – even as we learn more and more about the lies Americans were told during the pandemic and how the “science” was actually fake, faulty, and inaccurate. 

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it – and it may be happening faster than we think. 

We must remember how quickly many leaders trampled on our God-given rights. We can never allow that kind of unconstitutional authority to take place in what’s supposed to be the Freest country in the history of the world. And we must tell our kids and our grandkids to do the same.