00:00:55.140how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:58.680I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:01:02.300Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,
00:01:06.000abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:01:09.840These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:01:13.660Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart
00:01:16.440on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:21.520It's everybody's favorite time of year.
00:01:23.640Girls all over America are spending thousands of dollars
00:01:26.860at Kendra Scott, Lululemon, and going crazy on Revolve.
00:01:32.740No seriously guys, it is time for Sorority Rush.
00:01:35.900You'll learn about the sex lives of sorority girls.
00:01:38.740Plus, we'll reveal what frat boys really think about sorority girls.
00:01:42.820Listen to Dirty Rush on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.
00:01:46.260Follow Dirty Rush and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.
00:01:50.360It is a reflection of just the overall low level of engagement that most of us have
00:01:59.320when it comes to what's happening in our own backyards.
00:02:08.220There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:02:16.340I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:02:21.160We can all probably name a big, flashy national political leader1.00
00:02:25.480who successfully amassed a lot of political power in the United States' federal government.
00:02:30.900His name starts with a Donald and ends with a Trump.
00:02:33.820But what about the extremist power grabs happening in our own backyards?
00:02:38.420Right-wing extremists have been quietly and successfully building power at the local level,
00:02:43.920zeroing in on institutions like local school boards and small towns.
00:02:47.080And while many of us are paying attention to national issues, it's happening right under our noses.
00:02:53.640I am the host of Bedrock USA, which is a new podcast from Bloomberg City Lab and iHeart Radio.
00:03:00.720And I'm also a reporter on staff at Bloomberg City Lab.
00:03:05.540In her podcast, Bedrock USA, reporter Laura Bliss uncovers how the far right is making inroads in local government.
00:03:12.460So how did you become someone who covers the way that things like extremist ideology and conspiracy theories can really impact small town life?
00:03:22.800Yeah, so I came into this from a somewhat sideways path. I have been covering cities and local communities for most of my journalism career.
00:03:36.940and so because I report on that local level on issues like housing and transportation and kind
00:03:45.220of you know local policy issues I really couldn't ignore the way things like QAnon and other forms
00:03:53.560of kind of anti-democratic rhetoric were starting to creep into my feet and this became especially
00:04:00.160true you know during the pandemic and I think really became hard to ignore if possible ignore
00:04:06.640to ignore after january 6th and the capital insurrection i think we've all seen this at
00:04:12.620this point this explosion in stories about school board battles you know waged by q anon believers
00:04:18.840oath keepers running for city councils uh and and kind of the bread and butter issues that local
00:04:26.520governments work on you know stuff like the you know the development proposals for news housing
00:04:34.340projects or light rail stations like even even issues like these um started to become in not
00:04:40.980every case but but in a sort of surprising number uh of communities i was reporting in kind of
00:04:46.920tinged by our just hyper-partisan and kind of an increasingly extreme political environment
00:04:54.640um and so this podcast bedrock usa which is really about how you know far-right ideologies
00:05:01.420are reshaping local governments and kind of what local communities are doing about it
00:05:07.400really came out of that um but i also add too that i think it's just really fascinating to
00:05:14.660look at the local level or to sort of use the local level as a lens into the broader issues
00:05:20.660that you're talking about because you know when you are reporting in a small town you're talking
00:05:27.280to people who are literally neighbors with each other. Um, you know, and if, and if you're kind
00:05:32.980of like a anti-government conspiracy theorist in a small town and, you know, you just profoundly,
00:05:40.000you know, mistrust the person who is on your city council or you're, you know, railing against a
00:05:45.880school board member, I mean, that can mean going against your own neighbor or, or just sort of
00:05:49.820believing that your own neighbor is fundamentally, you know, unworthy of your trust. Um, and so that
00:05:55.980just provides some really interesting kind of human drama that I am attracted to as a reporter
00:06:02.760and I guess someone who likes to tell stories um and finally too I mean this kind of like
00:06:10.960hyper partisanship that we're talking about and you know ideologies that are infused with
00:06:17.300misinformation and conspiracy theories uh it's just really a sharp contrast with the way local
00:06:24.740government theoretically is supposed to work. Normally, we think of local government as the,
00:06:30.980you know, institution that takes care of our least partisan issues, right? I mean,
00:06:36.180these are supposed to be the people working on keeping our streets paved and making sure the
00:06:40.540trash gets picked up and, you know, just the sort of bread and butter issues that you think would be0.97
00:06:45.920immune to, you know, ideologies like QAnon. And so just all of these kind of dynamics at play
00:06:56.820just really drew me into this story. Think about the mundane, everyday issues that come up in your
00:07:02.940community, where the bus stops are, how schools are funded, what resources are available for what.
00:07:08.700Now imagine that a well-organized coalition of extremists could hijack the conversation around
00:07:13.480those issues and stymie any meaningful progress on them. While reporting for Bedrock USA,
00:07:19.600Laura found that the issues that you might have once thought about as not really that polarizing
00:07:23.520would become hotbeds of extremist conspiracy theory. Yeah, I'm wondering, in your reporting,
00:07:29.740have you seen that we're reaching a place where these resources and these things in
00:07:34.420local government that you would think of as being nonpartisan are just all so deeply politicized?
00:07:40.340Yes, absolutely. And I think that's really one of the most interesting things about reporting on these issues in a local kind of government context is that we're seeing issues that are traditionally not partisan at all, or at least not partisan in the kind of traditional left versus right sense, really become politically charged by politicians or political groups.
00:08:03.320and taking on, you know, really kind of high political stakes in ways that we might not
00:08:09.980previously expect. And so, like, for example, one of the stories that we reported on in the
00:08:15.040Bedrock USA podcast, which I really hope people listening to this show check out, is a story of
00:08:21.620how a proposal to build an opioid addiction treatment clinic in a small town called Squim,
00:08:27.900which is in Washington State, really drove the town apart into two camps. One side was opposed,
00:08:34.940and the other side was more supportive. And, you know, it's not totally unexpected that something
00:08:40.260like an opioid addiction treatment clinic would be controversial or have supporters or opponents,
00:08:45.640but what was really unusual is that, especially after the pandemic hit, one Facebook group in
00:08:51.860particular, it was against the clinic, very quickly aligned itself in support of various
00:08:57.640far-right ideologies around stuff like masking and vaccines, as well as lies around the 2020
00:09:04.880election results. And so I think what's so fascinating and scary about that dynamic
00:09:13.420is that it not only reflects kind of a broader political landscape where everything is partisan,
00:09:19.060Everything is kind of a left versus right, you know, cultural issue. But also that this particular local opposition group on Facebook actually became a pathway for radicalizing some people.
00:09:33.120There were people in this town who were initially drawn into this group to discuss the local clinic issue and discuss, you know, why they were so opposed to it.
00:09:42.540But then by virtue of being in this online space, we're exposed to more kind of radical ideas.
00:09:49.520And I'm not just talking about masking and vaccines, but that's definitely worthy of, you know, our conversation.
00:09:54.960But, you know, by 2021, I was looking at this Facebook group and seeing people, you know, post in support of stuff like or posting in support of sovereign citizen groups, which sovereign citizen, it's kind of a ideology that falsely promotes the idea that people living in the United States can be exempt from U.S. law.
00:10:19.300And this is kind of a movement that's been linked over many decades to numerous acts of political violence.
00:10:25.280You know, you mentioned that someone being opposed to an opioid treatment clinic in their small town, that's not terribly surprising.
00:10:33.880I can imagine somebody having that kind of response.
00:10:36.200But then on an online platform like Facebook, that kind of gets mixed in with anti-mask stuff, you know, maybe QAnon stuff, election denying stuff.
00:10:49.240I guess my question would be, how do these things all get kind of wrapped up?
00:10:53.360You would think that these things would be very disparate, but they all sort of travel in circles.
00:10:58.540And so like any one conspiracy theory kind of comes along with multiple harmful conspiracy theories, it seems like.
00:11:06.200yeah i mean i think a big uh just part of the the dynamic you're you're kind of asking about
00:11:15.420is you know just boils down to the people who are posting right i mean we saw in this particular
00:11:22.400example in squam washington this this opposition group was was led by a woman who had actually
00:11:28.860tried to run for a state legislator position previously. And she was, you know, Republican
00:11:37.260and sort of carried what became, you know, increasingly pretty extreme views on stuff
00:11:44.040like masking and vaccines and also the 2020 election. And so her, as well as others in the
00:11:51.720You know, use that space as a forum to post about these other topics and post misinformation and, you know, links to YouTube videos that spread lies about stuff like the 2020 election or Anthony Fauci and, you know, these kinds of hot button, you know, topics that became major drivers of misinformation and including QAnon, right?
00:12:17.000which we're seeing, you know, has not died. We've just seen in the last couple of weeks,
00:12:22.620you know, Donald Trump increasingly embracing, you know, QAnon slogans and kind of QAnon-related
00:12:28.800memes, even as the number of really disturbing acts of violence linked to QAnon are also going
00:12:37.080up. So anyways, to answer your question directly, I think it really mostly boils down to, you know,
00:12:44.400just the the sort of event diagram of people in these kinds of forums you're going to have people
00:12:49.940who are already sort of holding more extreme views and already are kind of linked to these uh you
00:12:55.440know networks related to conspiracy theories and sort of misinformation networks and then they're
00:13:01.280just exposing a wider uh kind of group of people to those ideas who who may have entered that space
00:13:09.320for different reasons to begin with, right?
00:13:14.060Yeah, actually, I talked to one researcher
00:13:16.540who had studied this particular Facebook group
00:13:19.560that I'm talking about in Squam, Washington,
00:13:21.100and he was actually able to find an example
00:13:23.560of one Facebook, or one group member, I should say,
00:13:27.500who, you know, literally moved from, you know,
00:13:31.260in the time before she joined this Facebook group
00:13:33.620from being like a Bernie Sanders supporter
00:13:36.180to, you know, posting in support of the sovereign citizen movement, which is this very far right
00:13:42.720kind of ideological movement, like I mentioned, that promotes this very dangerous and false idea
00:13:50.680that, you know, you can be sort of exempt from U.S. law if you apply for this basically
00:13:58.380fake set of documents. Again, and this is something that's also been linked to actual
00:14:05.400political violence. So this is just a really scary example of how local issues that traditionally
00:14:14.380were sort of outside this normal partisan dynamic are now becoming avenues for radicalization.
00:14:26.440The normal avenues of talking about what's happening in your community become open,
00:14:31.720Like they're being exploited and manipulated in a way that like you can't even have the conversation about your school board or your potholes or your garbage because those conversations are being so easily manipulated by bad actors.
00:14:45.160yeah and i think actually that touches on a really important point and and another i think
00:14:50.900important or another reason that paying attention to these kind of like local forums is so important
00:14:58.400which is that normally we don't pay attention to them right like local government is the level of
00:15:04.820government that on average you know we know sort of least about which is ironic because in some
00:15:11.000ways it has the most direct impact like we all care if our trash gets picked up you know we all
00:15:15.520care about the potholes on our roads and our local school systems but you know we just sort of take
00:15:20.400for granted that those things are just going to happen on their own and so we tend to pay a lot
00:15:25.080more attention to you know national politics or even sort of our state level you know political
00:15:30.040issues than we do to what's happening in our city council meetings and school board meetings you
00:15:35.220You know, until now, because these issues are becoming so much more kind of inflamed and extreme.
00:15:43.820But I think you sort of hit an important point, which is that, you know, folks who are exploiting, as you say, that level of ignorance, you know, in which most of us exist around our local government, you know, people are aware of that.
00:15:58.820And so they're they're getting into these beatings where there isn't necessarily a lot of scrutiny or a lot of awareness in the general public and and, you know, taking advantage.
00:19:48.620and we're back it's easy to stay read in on issues at the federal level you know who's
00:20:00.900running for president and what they stand for but if we're being real i'd be willing to bet
00:20:05.280that a lot fewer of us are as dialed in to issues happening at the local level and we probably should
00:20:10.720be because from county clerks offices to school boards these issues can really have a profound
00:20:15.940impact on our day-to-day lives. Laura says that extremists exploit our tendency to not always be
00:20:21.600so invested in local politics. And when we aren't paying close attention, they can swoop in and take
00:20:27.600over. Yeah, that's exactly what I was excited to talk to you about next. Can you describe what
00:20:33.740you've seen in your reporting about how folks have been able to really amass political power
00:20:38.980at the local level, really in kind of a sleeper way? Before you know it, you're like, oh,
00:20:43.880folks have really done a successful power grab of our local government.
00:20:49.000Absolutely. So Bedrock USA really tells the story of two communities in particular. And one of them
00:20:55.080I've already mentioned, it's Squibb, Washington. And the other is Shasta County, California,
00:21:00.520where the story is really ongoing, but played out in a pretty dramatic fashion, especially
00:21:07.840last year in 2021. And Shasta County is a very conservative pocket in Northern California.
00:21:16.020It's a few hours north of Sacramento. It's always been, you know, a pretty deep red bastion.0.95
00:21:23.460But during the pandemic, we really saw how, you know, folks on the further right end of the
00:21:31.880spectrum really took advantage of some of the dynamics we've been talking about, you know,
00:21:36.340just the fact that people don't normally show up to their, you know, uh, county board of
00:21:42.980supervisors meetings to sort of hear what's going on, but some people with pretty extreme
00:21:48.360political views did. Um, and so just to sort of illustrate that a little bit more, uh, a group of,
00:21:57.240uh, far right sort of ideologically aligned folks, including militia leaders, uh, you know,
00:22:05.720State of Jefferson supporters, State of Jefferson is a movement to have a chunk of California and a chunk of Oregon basically secede, kind of conservative secession fantasy movement, you know, as well as anti-maskers and just kind of all around disaffected, you know, conservatives who were sort of radicalized by the pandemic.
00:22:28.220All of these folks band together during COVID to recall a conservative Shasta County supervisor.
00:22:41.580So the county supervisors in Shasta, it's basically a city council, but at the county level.
00:22:48.100And by successfully recalling this person, which they did, and install kind of one of their own,
00:22:55.880And they were actually able to shift the balance of power in this conservative county so that now the board is controlled by a majority of pretty far right individuals and who have done things like early and earlier this year,
00:23:12.780you know, repeal the local state of emergency around the pandemic and insist that, you know,
00:23:20.940county board meetings be conducted in person rather than taking place over Zoom to, you know,
00:23:27.960mitigate, you know, pandemic risk. And also, you know, more worryingly, fire the county
00:23:35.080public health director, excuse me, the county public health officer. And there's actually been
00:23:41.560this sort of alarming exodus of very high profile, you know, county officials who oversee the
00:23:48.340Department of Health and the county CEO, I believe. But there's been this really kind of worrying
00:23:54.100exodus of high ranking, you know, county officials who are experts in their field, you know, and who
00:24:01.040really are responsible for just keeping this level of government running in the kind of like day to
00:24:06.400day functioning way that most of us would expect. And so this is a movement that's really alarmed
00:24:13.220quite a number of residents in Shasta County. But again, in some ways, as you've been saying,
00:24:19.040it is a reflection of just the overall low level of engagement that most of us have when it comes
00:24:27.040to what's happening in our own backyards. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad that you're spotlighting this
00:24:32.880because I do think that it's just really easy to get super fired up about who's in the White House,
00:24:38.840who's in the Senate, who's in Congress. And I mean, I think we're all, I'm guilty of it. I just
00:24:44.120think it's like very easy to focus on these bigger conversations and elections and races
00:24:49.340and really overlook what's happening on your own block and your own neighborhood and on your own
00:24:55.420street. And so like, one, I'm really glad that you're spotlighting that because it is really
00:24:59.380important. And I guess my second question would be, you know, should we take the reporting that
00:25:04.820you've seen in Bedrock USA as kind of a wake-up call as to why it's so critically important that
00:25:10.840we stay engaged and checked in at the local level as well as the national and federal level?
00:25:17.740Absolutely. I mean, I hope that is one of the sort of take-home messages. And, you know, and I will
00:25:24.080say that, you know, local officials who are, you know, working in some of these communities where
00:25:28.940we reported, would even say that, you know, silver lining might be too optimistic of a
00:25:36.400phrase, but, you know, that they are glad, you know, that there is more attention being
00:25:43.480paid to the work that they do, you know, as a result of these movements that are, you
00:31:00.040When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.
00:31:05.840I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:31:12.180I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.
00:31:15.780I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything.
00:31:24.360Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:31:28.620I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:31:33.180I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:31:40.620They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:31:44.440But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:31:48.100They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:31:51.680Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:32:00.120If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:32:06.020This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,
00:32:12.220pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the
00:32:16.800same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books,
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00:32:29.220From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,
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00:32:50.240you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever
00:32:56.720you get your podcasts see you between the pages didn't catch the latest roland martin unfiltered
00:33:02.960podcast here's what you missed and the argument is do you want to win if you don't win you have
00:33:11.660no power it's real those are the very people who i always say vote against their own economic
00:33:16.680interest and they complain about the very thing they're receiving it's raw i knew that the issue
00:33:21.600of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men roland martin unfiltered i went0.53
00:33:30.780off i said this is exactly i'm talking about y'all gonna scream at chanel but you don't want
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00:33:49.460to 2030 you better be hitting the ground going hard in the south now and download roland martin
00:33:55.440unfiltered on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts
00:34:00.780let's get right back into it so i want to switch gears a little bit you know so much of what you
00:34:13.200have covered on the podcast has been pretty dark but one of the sort of silver linings is that
00:34:19.840people didn't take this sitting down in these in these you know small communities they actually
00:34:25.120organized to resist the takeovers of their communities by these extremist factions.
00:34:31.160Can you talk a bit about how they were able to do that?
00:34:34.780Absolutely. So, yeah, the community there is in Squim, Washington. And so this was where,
00:34:42.400like we were talking about earlier, there was this opioid addiction treatment clinic that was
00:34:47.220proposed. It really drove the town in two and the opposition group became this kind of like forum
00:34:52.300for almost radicalization um and and part of the story too is that you know while people were kind
00:34:58.860of asleep at the wheel so to speak or not paying a whole lot of attention to what was happening on
00:35:04.740their city council um in this small town a uh guy was elected to city council and eventually became
00:35:13.360mayor, who was a professed supporter of QAnon at that time, who actually was posting with
00:35:23.380the QAnon slogan, where we go one, we go all, on his Facebook page, and who eventually would
00:35:29.380go on the local radio station in this small town and kind of advertise QAnon and encourage
00:35:37.580people to go look up YouTube videos that promoted this dangerous conspiracy theory.
00:35:43.360And so when that happened, and kind of then all around the same time as the big controversy around the clinic hit, you know, people really freaked out. I mean, not everybody, right? Because the mayor did have the supporters for sure, particularly in this Facebook group.
00:35:59.760Um, but, uh, there was a group of citizens in this community that came together and said,
00:36:05.860you know, this is where we draw the line, basically.
00:36:08.220Um, and so they sort of set their eye on the upcoming city council election, uh, and they
00:36:13.640formed a group, which they called the Good Governance League.