Shasta residents voted out an anti-establishment leader in favor of a business owner who attends the enormously popular yet controversial Bethel church

This is the third in a series of three stories on the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election in Shasta county, a region of 180,000 people in northern California that has emerged as a center of the election denial movement and hotbed for far-right politics. Read the first and second story.

For years, an extremist far-right movement has worked to transform one of California’s most conservative regions. Since gaining a majority on Shasta county’s governing body, they have managed to spark an exodus of government workers, attempted to do away with the voting system and fought the state over policies pertaining to Covid-19 and the second amendment.

Earlier this year, voters in the community of 180,000 – perhaps tired of Shasta’s national notoriety as a hotbed for extremist politics and election denialism – declared they had had enough. In a stunning rebuke, they voted out a far-right leader by an enormous margin, handing his seat to a political newcomer.


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  • Jagothaciv@kbin.earth
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    1 month ago

    Shasta ofc. They should also mention that many rural towns are held hostage by these groups. Yucca Valley is another in CA. That place has the church vs desert nazis that are backed by marines and VC money. No joke that place is fucked. Coachella is just where they hold all of their gatherings.

    It’s been my experience that a major portion of rural communities have been ravaged by extremists. Nazis, racists, extremist church weirdos, drug gangs and others.

    Years of Boomer fuckery made it all happen.

    • andyburke@fedia.io
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      1 month ago

      Yep. The thing is: they have been propagandized to think the cities are WORSE.

      Think about how these people view our country, when it’s really just an even more dystopic nightmare than they’ve already created for themselves locally.