Alaska has changed a lot during my decades here. In my personal opinion, some things have changed for the better, but at least as many have changed not for the better.
Very few Alaskans living today can have any memories at all about World War II and the consequences of far-right Nazism on the entire Western world. If they did, perhaps they wouldn’t be so glib about standing up for the far-right fascist extremism that is such a change in Alaska from when I was decades and decades younger.
Almost all the Republicans that I knew in the 1960s and 1970s would be classified as “moderate” today, even though at the time, I thought some were pretty extreme right. But they’re nothing at all like what I see around Anchorage today.
My good friends in the old days, those I would spend birthdays and holidays and have dinners with, were Arliss Sturgulewski and Jay Hammond-like Republicans; and Bill Egan and Mike Bradner-like Democrats. Not a Nazi or a socialist in a bucketload!
They all put Alaska above winning abstract and tedious political points. Too bad so many of them have passed on.
— Clayton McDowall
Anchorage
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