Zac Eckstein Opposes Picking Fights, Except Apparently on Facebook

LEWIS COUNTY, WA — Zac Eckstein wants Lewis County voters to believe he is the candidate of calm, respectful leadership. On his campaign website, under “Community Engagement,” he says a commissioner should make people feel heard, not use their platform to pick fights. That would be a strong message if it didn’t crash headfirst into the memory of how the Lewis County Democrats Facebook page was apparently used under his leadership.

Because back on November, 2025, the Lewis County Democrats page took aim not at a sitting official, not at a policy vote, not at a public board member, but at a private family relative of Winlock’s new mayor. Her apparent offense was promoting a Turning Point USA event in a community forum. For that, she was labeled a “Christian nationalist” in a public political post. So apparently, in some circles, “making people feel heard” now means grabbing the nearest loudspeaker and unloading on private citizens who are guilty of the unforgivable sin of posting something you do not like online. The post was deleted after receiving backlash.

That may play well in the outrage economy of social media, where every disagreement must be inflated into a five-alarm moral emergency. But county government is not Twitter with a budget. A county commissioner is supposed to show restraint, judgment, and enough maturity to know the difference between debating public issues and using a political platform to dogpile someone who does not even hold office. If this is Eckstein’s idea of community engagement, voters are right to wonder what “picking fights” would look like, since this already seems to qualify for the amateur division finals.

Lewis County does not need another official who treats public life like a perpetual comment war. It needs commissioners who can disagree without turning every local dispute into a performance for their political tribe. If Eckstein wants voters to take his platform seriously, he should first explain why the standards he now advertises did not seem to apply when his own side was publicly blasting a private citizen. Until then, his slogan reads less like a principle and more like one of those decorative signs people hang in the kitchen right above a sink full of dirty dishes.

—Harry