SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Amanda Radke and Vaney Hariri have never met each other.
But, the two have a few things in common. Radke is a rancher based near Mitchell, well known as an
advocate for agricultural issues
across the state. Hariri is the head of a
leadership development company
in Sioux Falls who has served on several city boards and has volunteered as a youth football coach for nearly 15 years.
They also have another commonality: in the past weeks, Radke and Hariri have experienced aspects of the eroding civility that people across the political spectrum point to as a significant problem, especially in the heated weeks before Election Day.
Screenshot from Youtube
Though he wasn’t named in the voiceover, Hariri was featured in an
attack ad
by incumbent Gov. Kristi Noem highlighting the “extreme” positions of Democratic candidate Jamie Smith. In the social media post used in the campaign ad, Hariri, who is Black, is pictured next to Smith at a racial justice march in Sioux Falls during the summer of 2020.
“That’s a surefire way to turn off people from leadership because they have to look at unnecessary scrutiny for no reason when they’re trying to do the right thing,” Hariri, who wrote a
response
to the advertisement on Facebook, told Forum News Service. “And it further divides people.”
On the other hand, Radke’s interaction with hostility came after recording a
in support of the governor that was posted by the campaign’s social media. Soon after, she was on the receiving end of a social media avalanche of reports and login attempts that resulted in her accounts, and the business account of her sister, being locked.
“I kind of liken it to if you put up a campaign sign up in your front yard and someone disagrees with how you vote, then they decide that they can attack your family, your livelihood, your reputation and pretty much any other way that they could possibly hurt you,” Radke said.
I’m proud of my life spent as a farmer, rancher, and a mom.
As Governor, we’ve cut red tape to allow our agriculture community to thrive. And as a mom, I made it my goal to put families first in education.
I appreciate your kind words of support, Amanda! pic.twitter.com/zMQMStZv7I
— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) September 27, 2022
In a September
poll
of registered voters in the state conducted by South Dakota News Watch and the Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota, 79% of respondents said that civility in America has worsened over the past five years.
Just 2.6% believe it has improved.
A July poll asked a similar sample to rate different groups on their level of responsibility for improving civility. Respondents thought political leaders and individuals were the most responsible groups; news outlets and social media were third and fourth, respectively.
South Dakota News Watch
The top two groups in this poll are the two involved in the cases of Hariri and Radke, respectively.
Hariri says the use of his image should wake more South Dakotans up to the vitriol within the state’s politics, which he thinks has been used by elected officials to villainize private citizens. Hariri noted that, before the march, he had spoken with the Sioux Falls mayor and several law enforcement officials, and found the characterization of that day as a “violent riot” by a spokesperson for the Noem campaign untrue.
“We all somehow, in our minds, allowed ourselves to believe that that type of politics didn’t happen in South Dakota, or would not happen in South Dakota,” Hariri said. “And [Noem] is a major proponent of that kind of politics, where you tether somebody to a more negative, polarizing figure. You try to diminish their accomplishments by tethering them to everything else.”
On the side of individuals, the Noem campaign in a fundraising email tied the treatment of Radke to the broader issue of “cancel culture,” a phrase generally referring to backlash that in some way goes beyond simple speech and instead begins to affect one’s livelihood or safety.
Screenshot
Ian Fury, the communications director for the Noem campaign, sees the use of the image differently, writing in a statement to KELO’s Jazzmine Jackson in a
piece on worsening civility in South Dakota politics
, “it’s a public image that was posted by Jamie Smith’s campaign account. If he has issue with the image being used publicly, then he should take it up with Jamie Smith.”
In reacting to the usage of Hariri’s photo, Smith felt that private figures unrelated to the campaign were off limits to attacks.
“In running for governor, I knew lies and mischaracterizations about me were coming,” Smith
on Twitter. “But no constituent deserves this treatment. Governors must respect the people they work for.”
And, although the video featuring Radke was also a public video posted on the Noem account, Fury drew a distinction between the two.
“The governor says pretty frequently, protesting is part of your First Amendment rights, but when that escalates to the level of violence that’s when it becomes inappropriate,” Fury told Forum News Service. “To have hacking attempts against Amanda and against her family are, in a similar way, taking it from your rights to speech to a sort of criminal act.”
Jason Harward is a
Report for America
corps reporter who writes about state politics in South Dakota. Contact him at
605-301-0496
or
jharward@forumcomm.com.
