The Radical Right's Assault on Voting Couldn't be More un-American
The radical-right movement in Anchorage masquerades as a group of well-meaning ‘Conservatives’ who claim to have the city’s best interest at heart. It is a group of individuals that has long existed but became emboldened during the Trump era.
You remember Donald Trump, right? One year ago, orange Furby had peaceful protestors gassed in the plaza between St. John’s Church and Lafayette Park. What a guy.
Trump, who, according to Maggie Haberman, is privately telling people that he expects to be ‘reinstated’ as president by August, lives in a delusional fantasy world generally inhabited by rich people who throw temper tantrums when they don’t get their way or when they suffer a perceived slight against their fragile ego’s. Often, as Trump did, these fragile egomaniacs turn to harassment and online bullying to stamp out an opposing point of view.
Talk about cancel culture.
Trump, knowing that his path to electoral victory had been imperiled after his administration deceived the American people about the dangers of the Coronavirus pandemic—and whose defense of white nationalism struck fear in the hearts of people of color around the country, began sowing seeds of doubt about the presidential election long before anyone had even cast a ballot.
The former president who emboldened hate groups and conspiracy theorists — kept his ‘Big Lie’ going even after the election had been called for President Biden. Trump’s speech at the “Save America Rally” encouraged the people before him to form a mob that would later breach the Capitol on a day watched in horror around the world. On January 6, as Trump tried to topple the government, our democracy buckled — but held.
Nearly five months later, America is still dealing with the fallout of Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. As we’ve seen here at home, those lies have been spread en masse, even in the face of facts and figures demonstrating unequivocally that voting by mail is accurate, secure, and reliable.
When Ballot measure 2 passed last year, cries of fraud littered the online landscape. Alaska Governor Lt. Governor Kevin Meyer ordered a hand audit of the ballot measure, which the Anchorage Daily News reported was “more than 99% accurate in counting the votes for Ballot Measure 2.” Out of 361,400 ballots cast, only 24 votes yielded a different result than originally recorded.
This year, a group of local conspiracy theorists began sowing seeds of disinformation ahead of the Anchorage mayoral election, falsely claiming that Dominion voting machines were not to be trusted and that Democrats would do everything in their power to make certain Forrest Dunbar won. Bronson’s ill-trained campaign workers, many of whom had long since embraced Trump’s Big Lie, scrutinized everything with a ‘stop the steal’ mentality.
So entrenched were campaign observers in their delusional belief that the mayoral election would be stolen from David Bronson, the Anchorage Municipal Clerk, detailed in her report the unprecedented harassment of election officials.
Comments made on Alaska social media over the past ten months have suggested that the Anchorage Assembly be taken by force and encouraged others to “take up arms” and march around the Loussac Library with loaded weapons until “they step down.”
“Anchorage needs to revolt.”
“We could literally physically walk in and take over, they are that weak. Soon it will happen. Let the election speak.”
“They cheated, we need to take it back by force take up arms,” to which another responded, “I’m afraid you’re right, at least physically remove them.”
“While I don’t condone bullets being used to attain any particular end, I now DO condone bullets being used to enforce honest and fraud-free elections (If other less drastic steps to restore election integrity fail).”
A report by the Anchorage Municipal Clerk about the Mayoral Runoff election noted that while many social media posts said Election Officials should be fired, one post on social media stated that Election Officials “should be publicly executed.”
Far-right blogs and unhinged social media groups have worked in earnest to spread the lie that Democrats and members of the Anchorage Assembly are “radical leftists,” even as they choose to ignore those within their ranks who seek to undermine our democracy and erode faith in our own elections.
Truly, nothing could be more un-American. Real patriots don’t try to keep voters from voting nor sow doubt about a voting system that is reliable, safe, and accurate.
