By any measure, the seemingly never-ending stream of vitriol at the Anchorage Assembly’s mask mandate debate over the past week was a depressing spectacle. If you showed up in person or tuned in to the livestream Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evening, you were witness to an hours-long hatefest that displayed just how degraded our politics has become, even at the local level. After watching the proceedings for any length of time, two questions were sure to come to mind: “How did we come to this?” and “Can it possibly get worse?”

The discourse at the meeting was as ugly as this cit...