A historic port city in Washington fought back from a QAnon takeover and won.
Voters rejected a right-wing slate of candidates back in November after an unusually contentious campaign over public health measures and the QAnon conspiracies promoted by Sequim mayor William Armacost, who formed alliances with conservative city council members who tried -- but failed -- to fully take over the town's government, reported The Nation.
“All these conservative people snuck onto the city council when nobody opposed them,” said Ron Richards, a 77-year-old former Clallam County commissioner, "and then they appointed their friends to government. It resulted in the most right-wing people you could imagine running the city of Sequim.”
Richards joined up with other concerned residents who had started the Sequim Good Governance League (SGGL), which was initially intended to protect city manager Charlie Bush from Armacost’s wrath, but after that official was forced into retirement the group then recruited and promoted candidates to take on the right-wing slate.
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“It became apparent we had a city council that needed to be replaced,” said retiree Dale Jarvis, who relocated to Clallam County from Seattle three years ago. “We needed to get them out. We started organizing.”
Existing divides in the city coalesced around an opioid addiction treatment clinic under development by the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, and social media battles erupted over mask mandates, support for militia-linked candidates, homelessness fears and alleged government corruption -- but voters overwhelmingly rejected the right-wing slate.
“It does have a national ramification,” said retired teacher Bruce Cowan, who lives in nearby Port Townsends. “Folks who don’t believe in government — populists, people who don’t have faith in the institutions of governance — shouldn’t be in charge of the government. One of the things that happened in Sequim is that people were not engaged enough to see how important it was to find candidates for city council. Now they understand the importance.”
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