Extremists see opportunity as fury over Covid rules erupts in rural California

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

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".