Extremists see opportunity as fury over Covid rules erupts in rural California [View all]

Local officials are being ousted and threatened as extreme rhetoric takes over once-staid public meetings

Dani Anguiano
@dani_anguiano
Sun 20 Feb 2022 06.00 EST

Residents of a California county are mounting an aggressive campaign to oust officials who have supported Covid safety measures and vaccines, the latest example of a growing extremism in local politics fueled by the pandemic.

A group in Nevada county, a rural expanse of about 100,000 people in the Sierra Nevada, is seeking to recall five county supervisors, saying that contact tracing efforts and the promotion of lockdowns and vaccines violate “religious freedoms and individual liberty”.

The effort comes on the heels of a successful recall campaign further north in Shasta county, where voters ousted Leonard Moty, a Republican supervisor and retired police chief. The Shasta county election, which followed nearly two years of threats and increasing hostility toward the longtime supervisor and his moderate colleagues, gave control of the board of supervisors to a group supported by local militia members.

Both campaigns shared extreme rhetoric and in some cases aggression driven by discontent over Covid restrictions and rooted in a deep distrust of institutions. This antagonism has only accelerated during the pandemic, even in largely Democratic states like California. Experts warn angst over Covid rules, inflamed by social media, has become a gateway to extremism.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/20/covid-restrictions-extremist-groups-local-politics-rural-california