Noem felt confident enough to talk about shooting her dog, and then double down on it after the backlash, and still has a career as an elected politician. She will be elected to the Governor’s office in South Dakota again, and handily.

I don’t follow South Dakota politics, so I’ll have to take your word on that. I know she’s been banned from every tribal land in the state; how does that impact her re-election chances? Does losing the Native American vote matter enough? And what about the possibility of another Republican rising up and challenging her? (I know there’s no chance in hell of a Democrat winning in SD.)

I agree that there are still limits for Republicans not named Trump (Noem is less likely to be Trump’s VP pick, for example), but even those limits are wildly more lenient than they’ve ever been in US politics.

Oh, absolutely. But even after taking that into consideration, the “limits” for Trump, if there even are any, are even more wildly lenient. Noem at least somewhat hit the limit with the controversy about shooting her dog. If it were Trump, he’d rile everybody up and convince them that the entire breed needs to be exterminated.