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What Next - The Anti-Government Blueprint in California

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.56K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Earlier this month in Northern California, a militia-backed anti-government group won a recall vote that will effectively give it control over a county’s local government. The recall ousted a Republican politician from his supervisor seat and was preceded by two years of threats and contentious county meetings stemming from pandemic precautions. Could this style of government takeover become a blueprint for other far-right groups nationwide?


Guest: Doni Chamberlain is a former newspaper reporter and the founder of A News Cafe, a website covering Shasta County in Northern California..


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Transcript

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0:00.0

The best gift I've ever received has to be a bike when I was younger, a pedal bike.

0:07.0

It was a sort of slick little road bike and I remember it was all like, it was so, it was all wrapped up,

0:13.0

it was so obvious what it was obviously because nothing's shaped like a bike and I had a little ribbon on it and I was so guest.

0:17.0

For that was a life changer and I'm still sort of big on cycling around my area now so for that one change me a little.

0:24.0

Enjoy in every zip with red cups now back at Starbucks. Between forgetting the sellotape,

0:32.0

trying to squeeze eight people around a six-seater table and the cat taking down the tree again.

0:38.0

Christmas can be tricky, at least with royal mail, sending parcels as easy.

0:44.0

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0:49.0

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0:54.0

Visit royalmail.com forward slash send simple offer and 31st December full details online.

1:07.0

When I think about journalists doing high risk reporting, I don't think about people like Donnie Chamberlain.

1:14.0

Donnie lives in Chastity County, California, ranch country. She writes for a hyper local news site she runs called a news cafe.

1:23.0

In the fall, she publishes her favorite things giving recipes when West Valley High got a distinguished school award from the state.

1:32.0

She wrote an article on that too.

1:34.0

But it is her coverage of county supervisor meetings where the trouble started.

1:40.0

I've been a journalist for 28 years now. I felt some level of protection bringing a notebook and a pen and a recorder.

1:49.0

Somehow I felt like that was my bulletproof vest, you know, I mean, I used to receive hate mail like most journalists do it one point or another.

1:56.0

But in the last two years, there's been this awareness that I do feel in danger.

2:03.0

I've gone to protests where members of the crowd will turn and point me out and can't my name and ask for me to come up to the front.

2:13.0

And I remember thinking a few times, this is how a lynch mob works.

2:18.0

To get why Donnie feels so vulnerable, it helps to have some context.

2:23.0

Donnie lives in what she calls a news desert. She says the paper where she used to work has been gutted. The local TV station is owned by a conservative network called Sinclair Broadcast Group.

...

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