OPINION: Alaska needs less partisanship, not more

Partisan politics itself is not pure evil. Disruptive, yes. Phony, certainly. Shortsighted, no doubt about it. Partisanship is a mean-spirited, childish game played by adults who care more about headlines, fundraising and winning elections than anything else.

But in recent years, partisanship has devolved into something much worse than a political shouting match.

Stoked by social media, half-truths and everything but the truth, partisanship has grown into a divisive force that threatens the country by threatening our elections.

Far too many Americans — particularly Republicans, egged on by the biggest hard-boiled liar of them all, Donald Trump — don’t believe our elections are honest.

A lack of proof hasn’t stopped the partisan ravings that Democrats, progressives, subversives and maybe even space aliens or the Easter bunny are stealing elections. The claims have become so incessant and excessive that only a third of Republicans say they completely trust that votes in upcoming party primaries will be counted honestly.

According to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, about one-third of Republicans say they have little or no confidence in the accuracy of vote tallies. About a third rate their confidence level as “moderate.” The other third trust that the elections will be fair. Not much to cheer about when only a third have faith.

It gets worse, as if that was possible. When polled on whether they trust that votes in the November 2024 presidential election will be counted accurately, only about one in four Republicans said yes. Add in Democrats, who are not as skeptical of vote counting as Republicans, and the poll found that less than half of U.S. adults overall are ready to believe the election results.

That ought to scare everyone. When people don’t trust elections, when they believe that cheating denies them a righteous victory, there is little holding them back from resorting to force. Get people angry enough and they will do almost anything. Which is what the world saw when election deniers stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump and his partisan cohorts in crime did not force his party’s followers into the failed insurrection, but he pushed and shoved and encouraged them from the stage and social media posts. The purposeful lies fueled distrust, which undermined faith in free elections and inflicted lasting damage on democracy.

Unfortunately, Alaska is not immune to the partisan mentality so evident on the national political stage. A proposed ordinance before the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly would allow candidates to include their political party affiliation on the municipal election ballot for the first time.

“Labeling creates forthrightness,” said Assembly member Dee McKee, one of the sponsors. “It just lets people know, if I’m buying a can of sardines, I want to know what’s in there.” The effort is not intended to add partisan politics to borough elections, she claims, but merely to provide clarity on where candidates stand on issues. As if the political party label tells voters all that they will ever need to know about a candidate.

Nothing against canned sardines, but they give off a strong odor — just like the Mat-Su ordinance. The borough would be better served by sticking with totally nonpartisan, unlabeled local elections, just as the country would be better off with less partisanship and more trust in elections.

It’s time to peel off partisan labels, not glue a new set on local elections.

Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is the publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.

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