The Bethany Marcum Aug. 18 commentary on Americans for Prosperity, aka AFP, expressing non-support of defined-benefit pensions for Alaska workers was yet another example of how naive AFP believes ADN readers, and Americans in general, to be. First off, AFP is yet another Republican organization run and supported by oligarchs and rich elites who are only looking out for themselves — think American Legislative Exchange Council, etc. The hypocrisy written all through that propaganda-ridden diatribe is meant to serve only a fraction of Americans — the top 1%. AFP is taking aim at education, police, government workers, firemen and other government entities in Alaska. They care not one iota about public safety or the citizenry and, rather, are looking out for the rich elite and Wall Street. To clarify the stakes here, AFP will eventually boil their anti-defined-benefits argument down to making Alaska a conservative rightto- work-for-less state. For decades, Republicans and AFP have had a profoundly cynical strategy informing their campaigning and policy making in America, essentially saying: break the government, then point to its brokenness to undermine the public’s trust that government can ever help. Republicans in general are very poor governors, policy makers or central planners. Gov. Mike Dunleavy is an obvious example. Just look at what he’s done to Alaska.
But also, on a national scale, consider the financial crisis George W. Bush left us in 2008. Or the economic disaster Donald Trump left us after his incompetent response to COVID-19, all the while increasing government debt by more than $7 trillion in just four years. When Democrats take office, over and over, they find they have to clean up the messes left by Republicans.
When Democrats show that government in partnership with workers and business leaders and civil society, can be a force for good, voters see it. And they want it to work. When organizations like AFP, ALEC, and Republicans in general try to warp the Constitution, undermine effective leaders who actually care about the people and, more critically, when Democrats ensure voters find out about it — voters fight back. It’s called democracy. AFP does not represent democracy and never has. Vote.
— Wayne Jones
Palmer
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