LETTER TO THE EDITOR

To the editor,

Some of us from the other side of the political spectrum wondered has Garfield County always been so exclusively supportive of the Republican party as it is today. It led to some research on the voting history of the county. The first presidential election vote in the county took place in 1892. There has been a total of 33 presidential elections in this county. The county has voted the same as the State of Washington 76% of the time and the same as the nation 76% of the time including through the election of 1988. This includes votes in this county that elected Democrats. But this pattern ended after the election of 1988 election. Since then the county has voted the same as the State of Washington 0% of the time and the same as the nation 37.5% of the time. Beginning with the election of 1992 the vote has been exclusively for the Republican and usually with much wider margins than before 1992. The fewest ballots cast in the county was 875 in 1896, the most ballots cast was 1733 in 1952. This year 2020 there were 1501 ballots cast. A 13% decline from 1952 to 2020, were they all Democrats.

Why did the voting pattern change so drastically beginning in 1992? Has the makeup of the kind of people who live here changed drastically? Other than perhaps an older population it is unlikely this explains the sweeping change. Is it the economic decline of the community? While real, it doesn’t seem it too can be solely to blame.

Prior to the early 1980s you had three major news networks…NBC, CBS, and ABC. Those news broadcasts were basically the same content nation-wide and was news without editorializing. The Fairness Doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was—in the FCC’s view—honest, equitable, and balanced. In 1987 the FCC formally repealed the fairness doctrine but maintained both the editorial and personal-attack provisions, which remained in effect until 2000. While these rules sometimes were not without fair criticism the same is true of the current free for all where you can pretty much say anything, you want no matter how far from the truth or misinforming it is.

In 1980 CNN arrived on the scene with twenty-four-hour news. In 1988 Rush Limbaugh became nationally syndicated. The 1990s brought the internet into our homes and in 1996 both Fox News and MSNBC were created. We are now bombarded by highly partisan and often exaggerated and sometimes even dishonest information. Add into the mix Facebook, 2004, Twitter, 2006, and numerous blogs and it has become the wild wild west of bovine fecal matter. Remember Barry Goldwater’s words, “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.” In 1964 Barry Goldwater lost Garfield County by a vote of 49% to 51% for LB Johnson. It was a close race in this county, but it is difficult to imagine the same outcome with the drumbeat of today’s echo chambers.

The adversaries of a strong United States of America must enjoy this freak show and can point to it as look at what democracy really is. Instead of demonstrating our strengths we are revealing our ugly under belly of weakness all for the sake of those purely motivated by money and power. We are no longer problem solvers seeking pragmatic solutions, we are problem creators.

Tom Fitzsimmons

Pomeroy, Wash.