Inside the remote California county where the far right took over: ‘Civility went out the window’

In Shasta county the pandemic intensified political divisions, and many officials quit or were pushed out amid bitter tensions

At some point in the last two years, Janine Carroll started avoiding certain grocery stores in her hometown of Redding, California. The retired grandmother could hear the taunts people made to those like her who chose to wear a face mask to fend off Covid-19. You never know anymore what the atmosphere is going to be when you walk into any given place," she said.

Masks are just one symbol of the divisions gripping Shasta county, a remote, heavily forested region in far northern California that has long considered itself an outlier in a deep Blue state.