When it comes to Don Young, never say never

It would be easy. Just fill in the oval on the 2022 general election ballot and drop the ballot in the ballot box at the polling place across the street. It would take 15 minutes, including the walk. But contemplating this move a year before the election disrupts my sleep, and when I look into the mirror come morning, I ask the face staring back at me, “Would you really do this?”

“This” is voting for Don Young in his bid for yet another term in Congress.

I have been voting against Don Young not just since he first ran for Congress in 1972, but when he ran for the Legislature in an Interior district that included Fort Yukon in the mid-1960s – before most Alaskans were born. Don was the fresh-faced, bouncy schoolteacher then, the guy whom his state house colleague Mike Bradner called “a likeable farm-boy type.” And I still voted against him, mostly because my parents and friends had taught me he was of the wrong party. (I will give my dad Fabian credit for being bipartisan in his criticism of the Legislature. He called our elected representatives “the comedians in Juneau” – and several members were his friends!)

For many decades now, I have written columns, editorials and historical pieces critical of Don. After one column, Don fumed that the Daily News was engaged in “tabloid journalism.” Then he called me up to have a frank and open discussion of journalism standards – “frank and open” meaning he yelled while I listened to his grievances, including his disgust with my “negatism.”

I thought, based on years of experience, I would be voting against Don Young as long as the grass shall grow and criticizing him in print as long as the sun does shine.

But then Donald Trump and his gang took over the Republican Party, and Don Young, at age 88, began to sound like a reasonable man – or at least like a reasonable Republican.

The Trump gang’s response to Don’s vote in favor of the $1 trillion Biden infrastructure bill is the latest example of Don suffering the slings and arrows of Trumpian misfortune. Trump himself condemned the 13 GOP House members who supported the bill, and then Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida issued calls for good Republicans to punish the 13. Greene used the word “traitor.” Gaetz wants those seeking reelection to be “primaried” by Trump candidates – driven from Congress in shame by true believers in the coming primaries.

Now, Rep. Gaetz is a young man (age 39) of ambition who is most impressed by his own oratorical skills. But I suggest he needs further education in oratory by visiting Don Young’s office and telling him to his face he deserves “primarying.” Rep. Gaetz will receive a lecture he will never forget from a master of bombast whose howitzer-decibel voice will leave the gentleman from Florida’s ears ringing and knees buckling. Take it from one who knows.

Of course Don Young voted for the infrastructure bill. He was being, ah, sensible. The bill will flood Alaska communities with money, some of it undoubtedly wasteful pork. But Don has been a pork man since the day he arrived in Washington, D.C., and Don knows any big spending bill will contain money earmarked for special if indefensible causes. That’s the way the system works (sigh).

Don Young did the right thing. There, I said it – possibly for the first time in my life. I feel so much better. If the election were held today, I would vote for him.

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

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