Bronson’s pandemic actions show he has a lot to learn about being mayor

Dave Bronson’s performance as mayor must be put into context.

The mayor of any large city has a difficult job, even when fate smiles upon him. Fate is frowning on Mayor Bronson. He is governing in a pandemic and is the only mayor in the community’s history to wake up to the headline “Rate of recently logged deaths 2nd worst in US.”

Bronson also is the only elected mayor in the last 40 years who never held elective office before becoming mayor. George Sullivan, Tony Knowles, Tom Fink, George Wuerch, Rick Mystrom, Mark Begich, Dan Sullivan and Ethan Berkowitz all had experience in the Alaska Legislature or Anchorage Assembly. Bronson was a commercial airline pilot.

The mayor has been on the job about 90 days. He has a lot to learn. For an elected official, learning usually means adapting. Dave Bronson is not adapting.

Befitting a man who came from nowhere and won a citywide election, Bronson ran as an outsider in opposition to the liberal/progressive supermajority on the Assembly. He promised he would put an end to pandemic restrictions and get business moving again. His rhetoric was standard Republican issue: Less government, more freedom, more prosperity. It worked. He won a narrow victory over Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar.

But Bronson not only ran in opposition, he is governing in opposition. It is understandable that he would rhetorically oppose the Biden administration’s approach to the pandemic: Biden is a liberal Democrat. It’s incomprehensible that the mayor would oppose (or ignore) so much contemporary science (the importance of vaccinating against the COVID-19 virus, for example), incomprehensible that he would attack Providence Alaska Medical Center for its employee vaccination requirements. Providence is one of the largest employers in Alaska and a political power. Lawmakers of both parties listen when Providence executives speak.

Just as significantly, Providence is a major middle-class institution. When Bronson goes after Providence, he goes after the middle-class managers who direct the hospital and the middle-class doctors, nurses, and staffers who perform medical services there. From a political perspective, this does not serve Bronson’s interests. In plain English, it is stupid. If Providence were a precinct, he would get close to zero votes there on election day.

Bronson’s performance at the Assembly hearing on a mask mandate has been disastrous, not only for the community but also for him. After wrapping himself in the flag and quoting the Founders — John Adams, for one — he told Anchorage, the Assembly and his rabid supporters that the Assembly is more dangerous to the community than the virus. There are those who believe this, but not many. Then he embraced the protesters wearing the Star of David — protesters who claim the mask mandate will put them on trains to death camps as in Nazi Germany. I have been to Auschwitz. Nobody who has walked the grounds would consider a mask mandate a prelude to mass murder.

Mayor Bronson has much to learn about governing, starting with Principle No. 1: He was elected to lead a city. At the Anchorage Assembly hearings on a mask mandate, he was leading a mob.

Michael Carey is an occasional columnist and the former editorial page editor of the Anchorage Daily News.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.