After two years of far-right rule in a Michigan county, one chance to change it

PARK TOWNSHIP, Mich. — For much of the last two years, American politics at its most divisive, ideological and angry had dominated the previously unremarkable work of county government in the place that Jim Barry called home. Now it was primary day, and the voters of Ottawa County, a fast-growing, middle-class community of about 300,000 people on the shores of Lake Michigan, were headed to the polls. Barry, who described himself as a moderate in the mold of former president and Michigan Republican Gerald Ford, was running for a seat on the 11-member county board and hoping that voters in Ottawa, which former president Donald Trump had carried in 2020 by 21 percentage points, might be ready to embrace a different kind of politics. “I’m not sure Ronald Reagan could pass some of the conservative purity tests in the modern era,” Barry said. Advertisement He was standing on a busy street corner wearing a red, white and blue football jersey that said, “Elect Jim Barry,” and waving a sign with the same message. In 2022, eight hard-line Republicans, channeling Trump-style anger over pandemic-era mask mandates, had won seats on the board, defeating more moderate GOP candidates. The new commissioners had swept into office promising to “thwart tyranny” and defend the county from dark forces that had supposedly infiltrated their local government to promote abortion, sexualize the county’s children and corrupt its deeply held Christian morals. The majority’s beliefs had shaped policy, with real-world impacts on the lives of Ottawa residents, and spawned costly litigation. Two years after their stunning victory, the far-right commissioners were running on a simple rallying cry that spoke to their fears for their country and community: “Protect the Kids.” Skip to end of carousel The fight for the soul of a conservative county arrow left arrow right Washington Post reporters Greg Jaffe and Patrick Marley have made more than a dozen trips to Ottawa County, Mich., since fall 2022. They have documented the ways a tumultuous moment for the nation’s politics and the Republican Party have shaken up this fast-growing, right-leaning county of about 300,000 people. He sought to win over the skeptics and election deniers in his county, which then-President Donald Trump carried in 2020 by 21 percentage points, with patience and civility. Eight hard-line Republicans took their county board seats earlier this year, vowing to “thwart tyranny” and defend the constitution. Ottawa County quickly became a case study in what happens when county government is consumed by ideological battles over race, religion and American history. Since January, culture war battles over abortion, gay rights and gender identity have often overshadowed the unremarkable work of county government. Heather Alberda , who spent 20 years developing county programs to lower teen pregnancy and curb the spread of sexually transmitted disease, felt the sting of this shift. The pandemic-era battles over mask mandates and coronavirus vaccines had faded in Ottawa County, but the anger and mistrust of medical experts and government institutions from that era persisted. In September, commissioners sought to curb the county health department’s influence by slashing its budget. A program that provided free food to about 22,000 low-income residents was collateral damage figure out a way A stalemate over whether to fire the director of the county health department forced the two sides to finally wrestle with a question that for 11 months they had been unwilling to even consider: Amid all the rancor, could they somehowfigure out a way to live together 1 / 6 End of carousel Barry, a 69-year-old real estate agent, said he understood why so many in the community had been upset by the mask mandates. But he didn’t believe county government was the place to wage heated battles over divisive national political issues, like abortion, racism and sexuality. Advertisement “It’s not as exciting as trying to do something about transgender athletes in high school sports,” he said. “But there’s no purview for the county board of commissioners in that.” Barry, who had been standing on the side of the road, off and on, since 7:30 a.m., checked his watch. “We’re coming up on 6 [p.m.],” he said. After all the turmoil and county board meetings in which neighbors regularly called each other fascists, communists, Nazis and Christian nationalists, Barry wondered if there was a way to pull back from so much of the vitriol consuming the country. In a few hours, he and the people of Ottawa County would have their answer. A ‘God-breathed’ candidate Twenty-five miles to the east, on the opposite side of the county, Rachel Atwood corralled voters outside her polling place. Her group, Ottawa Impact, dominated the county GOP. Atwood, 43, got involved in county politics because she believed that mask requirements were hurting her autistic son at a critical moment in his development. The mandates were over, but Atwood thought that the threats to her children’s well-being from the government and pro-LGBTQ+ liberals remained as real as ever. “What makes me a little different in this race is that my experience is much more geared toward the current culture war,” she told a local television station. She was running in the Republican primary against John Teeples, a retired attorney, who described himself as a “fiscal conservative” intent on restoring “kindness” to the county’s politics. The night before the primary, Atwood and the other Ottawa Impact candidates each occupied one of the four geographic corners of the county and prayed for the protection of their community. “God has been sending people to me through door-knocking to say things to me that are supernatural, that are God-breathed,” Atwood said in a recent Facebook live video from the campaign trail. She prayed with dozens of people who had autistic children or close relatives with the condition, she said, and promised them she would fight for more county services for their loved ones. On their first day in office, the Ottawa Impact commissioners had fired the county’s administrator, canned its lawyer of 40 years, closed its diversity office and dumped its motto “Where you Belong” in favor of “Where Freedom Rings.” Advertisement More change — which Ottawa Impact opponents called chaos — followed. The new commissioners forced the county’s longtime sex educator, who had developed successful programs to lower teen pregnancy and curb the spread of sexually transmitted infections, into an administrative job. When their efforts to remove the county’s public health director were blocked by the courts, they cut the health department’s budget, eliminating a program that helped feed 22,000 low-income residents each year. Joe Moss, who co-founded Ottawa Impact and chairs the county board, didn’t respond to a request for comment. In an interview with a local television station, he described the new board members as regular people — teachers, entrepreneurs, nurses, social workers — who were acting as “guardrails” to defend the county’s children from “dangerous and harmful” forces. “I’m happy people have become so engaged,” she said. “We’re praying for you,” they told her. An anxious wait That evening, candidates and their backers gathered at election night parties where they compulsively checked the county’s website for early returns. Advertisement Just after 9:30 p.m. the county clerk sent a text alert that early results were in, prompting nearly 4,000 people to ping the county’s website within 30 seconds. “We are aware of the website issues,” the county clerk posted on his social media pages. An older man in a red “Make America Great Again” hat sat with friends at an election night pizza party for Mark Northrup, a small-town mayor challenging Moss in the Republican primary. A few feet away, Jacqui Poehlman, one of Northrup’s volunteers, hunched over a computer with a “Bans off our bodies” sticker on it. Northrup, 66, described himself as a “pro-life” Republican who planned to support Trump, his party’s candidate for the presidency. Poehlman, 43, described herself as “very liberal.” But they shared views on the value of well-funded public schools, the need for more affordable housing and the necessity of preventing Ottawa Impact from retaining its majority on the board. “Trump is his guy in the fight,” Poehlman said of Northrup. “But we’re not voting for Trump at the county level.” At the Ottawa Impact party, Atwood sat at a table with her friends in a rustic banquet hall, with strings of white lights hanging from the rafters. In the background a Christian contemporary music star sang: “We’re the generation that has to make a choice/ Will we push against this evil or will we watch while it destroys?” Advertisement Most of the parties began to break up around 11 p.m., before all the precincts had reported. The three Ottawa Impact candidates running for countywide office — prosecutor, sheriff and treasurer — lost to more moderate Republicans by about 20 percentage points each. Moss, Ottawa Impact’s co-founder, easily defeated his primary opponent by 14 points. “Their majority is gone,” said a relieved Poehlman a little after midnight. “That’s awesome,” said Janet Martin, a Democrat sitting next to her. “It’s good for our county,” added Judy Bergman, a former Republican. Atwood didn’t see the results, which included her own loss, as proof that Republicans had grown weary of Ottawa Impact’s hard-line politics. “My Republican election was taken from me by Democrats” and wealthy donors, Atwood said. That’s just how it is.” Moss vowed that despite the results, he would never moderate his message. “The majority does not dictate morality,” he said in a statement posted to Ottawa Impact’s website. “There are consequences to abandoning truth and abdicating freedom.” Justin Roebuck, Ottawa County’s clerk and a self-described conservative Republican, had sought to remain neutral in his local party’s civil war. On Wednesday evening he invited about 50 of the county’s Republican leaders to a “unity” party at a brewery in Holland, Ottawa County’s largest city. Josh Brugger, who won the GOP primary for relatively moderate Grand Haven’s commission seat, described the previous night’s results as a “multi-partisan” victory over Trumpism. “When radicalism reared up, we all united to put it back down,” he said. “Frankly, this has been a challenging and contentious time,” he began. Instead, he invoked Ronald Reagan, whom he described as a “man of principle,” and urged his fellow Republicans to come together in November to fight for the values that they shared — limited government, personal responsibility, fiscal restraint. “We do have a lot to fight for and there are clear, clear differences,” he said, referring to the upcoming presidential contest in his critical swing state and a competitive campaign for an open Senate seat. At the county level, Republicans hope to prevent Democrats from adding any more board seats to the two they currently hold. Barry, who came dressed in a shirt that featured the Statue of Liberty, fireworks and busts of Frederick Douglass and the Founding Fathers, said he wanted to find a way to work with Moss and the three other Ottawa Impact Republicans on the county board. “Nobody was conquered last night,” he said. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/11/michigan-county-far-right-commission-election/