OPINION: Killing a Kodiak: Sullivan’s record of submission, silence, and damage

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Some trophies never stop bleeding.

Senator Dan Sullivan’s campaign television commercial celebrating the killing of a Kodiak bear was intended to project strength. Instead, it revealed something more enduring: a view of power that measures success by domination rather than stewardship.

A magnificent animal became a political prop. Triumph replaced respect. Conquest eclipsed responsibility. The same instinct that turns a living symbol into a trophy can also shape the exercise of public office.

In the United States Senate, that instinct has left a record.

Over the past decade, Sullivan’s votes, public silences, and repeated deference to Donald Trump have formed a pattern. It is not merely political. It is constitutional. Again and again, Sullivan has aligned himself with a president whose conduct has tested constitutional limits and challenged the institutions designed to restrain executive power. Where independence was required, he offered loyalty. Where scrutiny was expected, he supplied silence. Where the law demanded clarity, he accepted ambiguity.

This is not an occasional lapse. It is a governing philosophy.

The first obligation of a senator is defending the rule of law, especially when doing so carries political risk. Sullivan has supported or tolerated the elevation of loyalists whose allegiance appeared directed more toward one individual than toward the institutions they were sworn to serve. The executive branch cannot police itself. It depends upon officials who understand that public office requires fidelity to the Constitution before loyalty to any president. Replace independence with obedience, and constitutional safeguards begin to erode from within.

Sullivan knows these constitutional responsibilities. He has chosen a different course.

When expansive theories of presidential immunity are advanced, when long-established precedent is stretched beyond recognition, or when credible allegations involving undisclosed financial dealings demand scrutiny, a senator trained in the law has an obligation to insist upon transparency. Silence in such moments is not neutrality. It is permission.

The Constitution grants presidents the power to issue pardons, but it does not sanctify their abuse. When clemency appears to reward political allies rather than correct injustice, confidence in equal justice inevitably weakens. A senator unwilling to question that pattern helps normalize it.

The courts deserve the same vigilance. Allegations that executive officials or the Department of Justice have advanced claims that misrepresent material facts should trigger rigorous congressional inquiry. Fraud upon the court is not merely a political accusation. It threatens the integrity of the judicial system itself. Yet Sullivan has offered no sustained public effort to demand independent review.

Congress possesses constitutional tools precisely for moments such as these. Hearings. Subpoenas. Investigations. Public findings. They exist to preserve the separation of powers, not to serve partisan interests.

Enable. Excuse. Evade.

That pattern extends beyond the courtroom and into broader questions of national policy.

Military commitments continue without clearly defined objectives or measurable endpoints. Congress possesses the constitutional authority to authorize and oversee war, yet too often allows prolonged conflicts to continue with limited debate and diminished accountability.

America’s alliances have been weakened by inconsistency and inflammatory rhetoric, yet Sullivan has offered little sustained resistance. Immigration laws remain outdated despite widespread recognition that reform is necessary. Vast sums flow abroad while urgent needs at home are dismissed as unaffordable. Each decision can be defended in isolation. Together, they reveal priorities shaped less by constitutional responsibility than by proximity to power.

The bear was never just the bear.

A Kodiak represents more than size. It represents strength balanced by nature, power restrained by an ecosystem that allows it to endure. To celebrate its death as entertainment is to misunderstand what gives it value. It is to confuse domination with achievement.

The Constitution survives for the same reason. It is not protected by the power of one person, but by the balance among institutions. Presidents possess enormous authority because Congress, the courts, and the rule of law impose limits upon that authority. When elected officials stop defending those limits, the system begins to weaken.

Senator Sullivan’s record tells that story. Oversight yields to loyalty. Constitutional duty yields to political calculation. Silence becomes consent.

Some trophies never stop bleeding.

The Sullivan television commercial celebrated one. History may remember another. A republic is rarely destroyed in a single dramatic moment. It is weakened every time constitutional duty yields to political loyalty, every time oversight gives way to silence, and every time power escapes accountability.

If that pattern continues, the greatest trophy hanging on the wall will not be a Kodiak bear.

It will be the Constitution itself.

Van Abbott is a 36-year resident of Alaska having worked in Ketchikan, Fairbanks and Anchorage as a municipal, financial and utility manager. He resides in Ketchikan and is currently a freelance writer. He served as a Peace Corps teacher in the 1960s.

See his website: politicalwinds.org.