Good Riddance: Save Anchorage Closes Its Doors in Defeat

In a move three years late, the far-right Save Anchorage Facebook turd is finally shutting down. The online group served as the nerve center for right-wing grievance politics during Anchorage's COVID-era from 2020 to 2022 and as the Bronson for Mayor campaign's online headquarters.

Administrator Amber Brophy King posted a lengthy complaint on Wednesday, announcing the group's closure. What began as a chaotic hub for those opposed to the Berkowitz administration's plan to address homelessness rapidly morphed into a political weapon used to elect Dave Bronson, constantly harass the Anchorage Assembly, and spread disinformation campaigns about vaccines, masks, election fraud, and QAnon conspiracy theories.

After six years of failing to save anything, administrators are now abandoning the project entirely.

In her post, King cites a massive drop in engagement and a complete loss of local focus as the primary reasons for the group's closure. In reality, the space intended for conservative local action had devolved into an unmanageable feed of national political outrage, personal attacks, and, according to King, moderators quickly lost control of the grotesque digital monster they created.

The farewell post is a masterpiece of projection. King complains bitterly about people taking content outside of the private group to target those involved.

Notably, this blog spent years doing exactly that. I took screenshots and documented the hateful rhetoric and coordinated harassment campaigns posted by Save Anchorage members and Bronson administration officials. I exposed their coordinated efforts to defund libraries, block progress on homelessness, threaten assembly members, and viciously attack public health workers.

King also complained about a radicalized spoof group contributing to confusion. It is incredibly difficult to imagine a page more radicalized than the original Save Anchorage group itself.

The most striking part of the announcement is the open resentment the administrators direct toward their followers. King scolds the group members for failing to vote. She claims that, based on her 'own research,' roughly one in five Anchorage residents are sitting out elections. She blames the group for looking for scapegoats while refusing to show up at the ballot box.

It's a fascinating take - especially considering that the group's leaders built a community entirely based on constant online complaining and are only now discovering their followers prefer online outrage to real civic participation.

The closure announcement ends on a bleak and pessimistic note about Anchorage's future. King claims businesses are struggling, and tourism is down. She stated it will take a major event to return Anchorage to its former glory.

Oh, but Ms. King - wouldn't it be nice if everyone worked together to continue the progress we've made?

In my opinion, Save Anchorage deserves a significant portion of the blame for the years of municipal dysfunction under the Bronson administration - after all, they helped to create and fuel it.

King signed off in her post by stating that the group's administrators are simply over it. It might be the first thing we have ever agreed on because I've been over it for a long fucking time. The closure of Save Anchorage is a massive victory for sanity and civil discourse in Anchorage.

The loudest source of local misinformation is finally gone.