Sullivan ducks town hall meetings across Alaska
An overflow crowd estimated at anywhere from 175 to 225 people attended a Fairbanks town hall Monday to voice concerns to Sen. Dan Sullivan about what is happening under the Musk/Trump regime. He did not attend.
Though he has refused invitations to take place in town hall meetings in Alaska, Sen. Dan Sullivan will be the keynote speaker Friday at a Republican Lincoln Day banquet with a $100 per person charge at Pike’s Landing in Fairbanks.
There will be a protest outside the venue from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Sullivan prefers speaking to people who agree with him, but the Musk/Trump regime has many people in Alaska deeply worried about the future of the nation.
Sullivan has been a loyal soldier to the regime and there has been little to no press coverage in Alaska about his silence.
I expect that the protest Friday will be misrepresented by the Republican Party as anti-Lincoln and “pro-slavery,” which is the lie that party mouthpiece Suzanne Downing invented about a protest outside a gathering last week in Mat-Su with Rep. Nick Begich the Third.
On Monday night the Noel Wien Library auditorium and the lobby outside was packed with a crowd estimated at between 175 and 225 people who wanted to voice their opinions to Sullivan, who did not show up.
Those who spoke were critical and passionate, but mostly respectful. In his insulated life in Washington, D.C., Sullivan isn’t hearing from Alaskans worried about the course of events under Musk/Trump.
The town hall organizers said they have invited Sullivan to name a date that would be convenient for him, but he won’t do that.
KUAC reported that an unidentified spokesperson for Sullivan, who refused to be recorded to speak on tape, “said many of these ‘empty chair’ town halls across the country are set up just for social media fodder.”
The anonymous federal employee who made that claim for Sullivan is both unfair and wrong.
There is more to the tensions in America at this time than Sullivan will admit.
Had Sullivan attended the event in Fairbanks Monday night, he would have heard earnest and pointed criticism of the Musk/Trump regime about 15 or more topics that Sullivan won’t talk about as he is sticking like glue to Musk and Trump.
Some of the main topics that Sullivan won’t talk about are these:
Kowtowing to Putin, the betrayal of our Ukrainian ally, attacking and insulting the people of Canada, threatening the people of Greenland and Panama, eroding the freedom of Americans, cutting Medicare and Medicaid, impeaching judges whose rulings displease Musk/Trump, ignoring court rulings that Musk/Trump don’t like, the torrent of lies from Musk/Trump, the persistent attack on the rule of law, the attack on science, the attack on research, and the incoherent statements about tariffs that have damaged America’s place in the world.
Sullivan should have been there to listen.
Matt Buxton reports that “similar events are planned in Anchorage and Juneau for this Thursday when Sullivan is scheduled to speak before the Legislature.”
In Juneau, there will be a town hall at the Mendenhall Public Library from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
In Anchorage, there will be an event at the Loussac Library from 5 to 7 p.m., also on Thursday.
Sullivan and his high-paid employees can continue to insist that these events he is skipping are “just set up just for social media fodder,” but they really ought to start listening.
The contrast between what Sullivan is not saying and what Sen. Lisa Murkowski is doing is stark. Murkowski says that Republicans are quiet because they are afraid about what will happen to them.
Here are her remarks to reporters in Juneau.
“I get criticized for what I say, and everybody else is like, ‘How come nobody else is saying anything?’ Well, figure it out, because they’re looking at how many things are being thrown at me, and it’s like, ‘Maybe I should just duck and cover,’” Murkowski told reporters.
“That’s why you’ve got everybody just zip-lipped, not saying a word because they’re afraid they’re going to be taken down — they’re going to be primaried, they’re going to be given names in the media,” she continued. “We cannot be cowed into not speaking up.”
“I’m not going to compromise my own integrity by hiding from my words when I feel they need to be spoken. I’m going to take the criticism that comes,” Murkowski said. “It may be that Elon Musk has decided that he’s going to take the next billion dollars that he makes off of Starlink and put it directly against Lisa Murkowski, and you know what? That may happen.”
Other Republicans, including Sullivan, have been cowed into not speaking.
Here is a video of the Fairbanks event Monday.
