July 27, 2022 • 40 mins
We meet Mary Rickert, a Republican county supervisor in Shasta County who believes that far-right activists used the pandemic as a “weapon” to remake government. Their plan: to recall three Republican county supervisors, including her. We also meet Jeremy Edwardson, the producer of the pro-recall docuseries, “Red White and Blueprint,” who wants to spread the word. But do recall organizers have enough money to succeed?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
We really did everything we possibly could to make it
as easy on people in Shasta County. That's Mary Rickart.
She sits on the Board of Supervisors in Shasta County, California.
That means she's an elected official, someone who helps manage
the budget and makes local policies. But we didn't connish anybody.
We you know, there were restaurants that never closed, there
(00:22):
were barbershops that never closed. Shasta County is a deep
red pocket of California, a few hours north of Sacramento.
Mary is a long time Republican and considers herself very conservative.
I voted for Trump, I'll be perfectly honest. I didn't
care for the man personally, but he really helped agriculture.
(00:45):
He really did. He cut back on regulation and made
our lives much better. I mean, when you're overregulated, it's
it's hard to do business, it's expensive to do business.
When Mary was first put it in as county super
riser in she wanted to work on local issues like
wildfire protection and mental health. Then the pandemic hit and
(01:09):
Mary's job turned upside down because the way it brought
government into presidents lives. I met a lot of people,
angry people like Carlos Spata, the bar owner and militia
member you heard in the last episode warning of violent
revolution at a Shasta County board meeting. If you don't
hear the seriousness of my voice, I hope you open
(01:30):
your ears. You absolutely listen to what I'm saying, because
this is a warning for what's coming. It's not gonna
be peaceful, what's longer. It's not gonna be ros on speeches.
It's not gonna be got it outside say pledgeible legiance.
It's not gonna be waving flats. It's gonna be real.
It wasn't just Carlos at meeting. After meeting, Mary and
her colleagues heard from a side of Shasta that she
(01:52):
had never paid much attention to before. These were folks
from a range of deeply conservative backgrounds and ideologies, connected
by a belief and the grave threat of government overreach.
When the ballot box is gone, there is only the
cartridge box. You have made bullets expensive, but luckily for you,
(02:13):
ropes are reusable. In Mary's eyes, COVID created an opening
for once fringe far right views to take center stage
in local politics, and it created an opening to put
those views into action. What it was is the pandemic
was used as a weapon. The intensity that drove some people,
(02:34):
she said, was unsettling. Politics have become people's religion now,
and I think that's a true statement. I do think
that politics have become a religion for these people. The
Constitution has become their bible, and I think they need
to find balance in their life, because when you put
politics before God, it can have some really unintended consequences.
(03:00):
In the last episode, we brought you to Squim, Washington,
where the forced resignation of a beloved city manager by
a q and On mayor triggered a movement to stop him.
And we introduced you to Shasta County, where the pandemic
fanned the flames of government mistrust and sparked a recall
of Republican leaders. We'll be digging into Squim later in
(03:22):
the season, but for the next few episodes, we're going
to stay in Shasta, where extreme ideologies have taken hold
at the local level. In this episode, we're going to
meet some of Shasta's far right activists, including a bar owner,
a mother, and a music producer, and we'll hear from
the moderate Republicans who didn't see them coming. I wanted
(03:47):
to get to know the folks leading this movement, What
were the beliefs that drove them, and how did the
pandemic help those ideas catch fire. The answers weren't what
I expected. People were furious about pandemic rules, but like
Mary said, county leaders weren't even really enforcing them. So
why then were people so angry and what would that
(04:09):
anger drive them to do. You're listening to Bedrock USA,
a production of Bloomberg City Lab and I Heart Radio,
a podcast about political extremism, small town life, and the
fight for democracy. I'm your host Laura Bliss, my producer
(04:32):
Kathleen and I met Supervisor Mary Rickard at the Shasta
County government building in downtown Reading. That's the biggest city
in the area, with about people. Mary had spent her
life as a cattle rancher and the decor in her
office did not disappoint you. Yeah, I have pictures of
(04:54):
cows just so I feel comfortable. There were pictures of
cows everywhere, ranching prizes and hats, sassy sayings. Mary said.
The first signs of turmoil showed up at a county
supervisor meeting in May the supervisors were meeting in person
at the County Chambers, but for safety reasons to stop
(05:14):
the spread of COVID, they kept the doors closed to
the public and broadcast everything online. But a group of
locals showed up anyway, and they wanted in. There was
one particular person who had a bullhorn and a group
of about people and they were being very disruptive in
the foyer about wanting into the meeting. That person was
(05:36):
a Listen McEwen, a county resident and mother of two.
She was leading the group of like minded folks to
protest the COVID rules. Melissa had a bullhorn which she
used to yell through the glass doors separating the board
chambers from the lobby outside. Some of the other protesters
were tape across their mouths, apparently a symbol of their
(05:59):
perceived muz ling. And what Alyssa shouted was revealing about
the way she personally thought the government should work. And
our declaration goes on to say that whenever any form
of government becomes destructive of these as, it is the
right of the people to alter for abolish it and
established new government. You don't no longer have our consent
(06:21):
to business. You are not responsible for our Alyssa was
asking the supervisors to defy state orders and reopen the county,
and she was citing a quote from the Declaration of Independence,
(06:43):
the part that warns that if the government gets to
infringe e on fundamental rights, it's the right of the
people to change or abolish it. From where Mary was sitting,
this made no sense. For one, it was bizarre to
her that Alyssa was directing so much anger at the county, because,
(07:03):
like I said earlier, the county actually wasn't doing much
to enforce California's COVID mandates. Yes, it had declared a
pandemic state of emergency, and it was following the rules
for government operations, but crucially, it was mostly leaving businesses
and individuals alone. A lot of bars and restaurants stayed
(07:24):
open without repercussions. An annual rodeo even drew huge crowds
after the Shasta County Sheriff's office said it wouldn't stop it.
It was also bizarre to Mary that Alissa was citing
the Declaration of Independence, which doesn't actually create any laws,
certainly not any laws giving authority to county governments. Here's
(07:46):
how the law works. Counties are subsidiaries of the state
according to the California Constitution, so even if the county
was looking the other way and not enforcing all of
the state COVID mandates, it didn't have the power to
overrule them. So it was all the more puzzling to
Marry that one of her colleagues, Supervisor less Bah, who
(08:10):
was sitting next to her in the chamber that day,
encouraged Alyssa, and Supervisor Ball had said, oh, well, you
can let her in, you can let her in as chair,
and he initiated. He was really trying to stir it up.
So this is where it started, and I find it
extremely disappointing that one of the supervisors was responsible for
(08:35):
basically that kind of behavior, and it's continued. What Mary
is saying is that this protest, this loud disruption of
county business, was encouraged by her colleague, Supervisor less Ba.
In the video of the meeting, you can hear him
trying to persuade Mary and the other supervisors to let
(08:55):
Alyssa inside. Why he did this I never got to ask.
Vaughan never responded to my requests for an interview, and
Alyssa declined to speak with me. But from Mary's point
of view, Supervisor BA, who had been on the board
for sixteen years, was making it comfortable for people like
Alyssa to flout the rules, and not just Alyssa. At
(09:19):
meeting after meeting, she was joined by dozens of angry
people who called on the supervisors to defy the state
and lift the restrictions. And sometimes the things they did
were shocking, things you'd never expect to see in a
local government meeting. After the break, we meet one of
the angriest Shasta residents. In August, Carlos Sappada, warned of
(09:47):
a violent uprising in a speech that went viral. I
ampably the only person that has a boss say what
I'm saying right now that we're building, we're organizing, and
we'll work with law enforcement or without law enforcement. And
septemb Or a man dressed as the Grim Reaper tried
to set a surgical mask on fire. In October, another
(10:07):
guy attempted to place all five supervisors under citizens arrest.
Both of them had to be escorted out. Mary struggled
to understand why any of this was happening. It just
didn't make sense to her, but the more I dug in,
the more I understood that this group felt with deep
conviction that their fundamental rights were being violated. But I
(10:32):
also understood why Mary was so dumb struck, because their
logic was self serving. On the same trip that I
visited Mary, I also talked to Carlos Spada. We met
at his bar Palomina Room. I'm sorry to keep you.
(10:53):
Carlos had threatened blood on the streets, a violent confrontation
with or without police. And while that might sound like
bravado to some ears empty threats, the reality is he
was really scaring people in Shasta. So did he mean
what he said? I asked him for an explanation, and
(11:14):
he said he wasn't really calling for violence at all.
I was warning them of violence, absolutely, you know, So
what's wrong with that? I mean, that's a great thing,
the fact that I warned them and said, hey, guys,
I'm talking to a lot of people every day. There's
people coming to me every single day that are at
the boiling point. There's people that are ready ready to
either kill themselves or kill somebody, and that sucks. You know,
(11:35):
people are feeling like, man, I'm not gonna be able
to feed my family. I'm not gonna have a job.
I mean, what am I gonna do. I'm not gonna
be able to put feel in my vehicle to go
to work. What do you tell these people? I mean,
that's a boiling point, you know. So for me to
tell the county, hey, this is what's coming was a
very fair and adequate warning. So to think that I
(11:56):
was calling for violence, I was doing the oppositely. I'll say, hey, guys,
let's do something about this. You know what, why why
don't you guys stop all this bullshit so that this
doesn't happen? Because we just want to live peace. Carlos
insisted he was telling his leaders that if they take
the right actions, they could avoid violence. He thought his
rhetoric was a logical response to what he saw as
(12:18):
threats to his own survival. In other words, he was
rationalizing his extreme speech, and he doubled down on it.
In the next breath. Carlos got angry at people who
reported his bar for staying open during COVID, and he said,
we can play that game. If you guys want to
want to go to war, It's not gonna be pretty.
(12:40):
Once again, it sure sounds like he's threatening violence. Lissa McEwen,
the Lady with the Bullhorn, was also a fan of
this kind of extreme rhetoric. Have a listen to this
clip from a local podcast called Sovereign Minds. And I
wasn't a constitutionalist before they started. I just sort of.
(13:00):
I had been paying attention to what was going on
and it was upsetting and I knew deep down something
wasn't right. And where I see this going And I
really don't mean this in a hyperbole, although it all
sound crazy, is is slavery. And I won't allow my
children to grow up enslaved. I will do everything in
my power to keep them free. Just to take a
(13:22):
beat on that, Melissa is saying that COVID was her
political wake up call, that she wasn't paying much attention
before the pandemic hit, and before comparing California's COVID rules
to slavery, she calls herself a constitutionalist, her new political identity. Constitutionalist.
(13:47):
That's a term I heard again and again in talking
to people on the far right. It's been around for
a long time, but what does it mean in this
current political moment. I called up an expert to hear more.
Name is Mary McCord. I'm the executive director of the
Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, where I kept at
Georgetown Law and also a visiting professor of law. I
(14:10):
guess I wouldn't try to describe one definition of it
because I think it really sort of is in the
eye of the beholder, in the sense of the eye
of the person who's suggesting that they are a constitutionalist,
and what we're seeing right now, I think in two
building off last several years. It goes back even decades,
but it's become much more prominent recently. I think, is
(14:33):
this notion of being a constitutional patriot, being someone who
is committed in their view to upholding and protecting the Constitution.
But of course it's the Constitution as they interpret it,
regardless of whether that comports with history, text, or Supreme
Court precedent. That's what can be dangerous about this ideology
(14:56):
because throwing around words like the Constitution and patriotism can
sound very legit, but oftentimes, at least when we're talking
about some of the extremist movements, they are not really
referring to the real Constitution. This far right version of
(15:17):
quote constitutionalism has led to violence. For example, in the
lead up to January six, Rudy Giuliani falsely told Donald
Trump that Vice President Mike Pence had the constitutional authority
to throw out the election results. Then there are the
sheriffs all over the country who refuse to enforce state
(15:39):
gun laws and call themselves quote constitutional sheriffs. And many
anti maskers invoked what they called their constitutional rights in
rejecting COVID rules. But that's just not how the constitution works. Well,
part of the core tenant of the Constitution is separation
(15:59):
of powers. Right, we have three branches of government, the executive,
the legislative, and the judiciary. And it is the judiciary
branches role to interpret the law, including interpreting the Constitution.
And so when private individuals decided to just usurp the
courts and declare for themselves what the Constitution means and says,
(16:21):
that is completely flaunting the Constitution itself, which provides a
process for this. So again, this doing things in name
of you know, in the name of the constitution, is
actually just the very opposite. The Constitution nowhere, nowhere authorizes
the people to overrule government processes outside those government processes.
(16:45):
And yet that is what many Shasta residents were doing.
They were fighting government rules in whatever way they saw fit,
using extreme rhetoric and violent threats to get their way.
It's hard to over eight how disturbing all this was
to Supervisor Mary Rickard. In her eyes, people like Alyssa
(17:07):
and Carlos were violating the ground rules for a functioning democracy,
and if they gave in to their demands, Mary feared
Shasta County could lose funding through wildfires and snowstorms. Mary
had always seen Shasta as a place that came together.
Now these far right activists were grabbing the political spotlight
(17:29):
and driving a wedge between themselves and others in the community.
If people are listening to this and they think this
can't happen to them, Never in a million years did
I think this would happen in Shasta County. It just
didn't seem possible, but it did. But as Kathleen and
I stepped out of Mary's office, I wondered should it
(17:52):
have been so unexpected? Because in some ways Shasta County
was an obvious place for a right wing revolt after
the break the origins of Shasta's Session movement, and the
community is made up of mostly white um mostly deeply
(18:16):
conservative people, many of whom have lived here for generations.
That was Analyze Pierce, the founder and editor of a
local news site called Shasta Scout. I called up Analyze
because I still didn't fully understand what was simmering beneath
all the anger and Shasta. That was this deep sense
(18:36):
of mistrust in government, in science, even in fellow Californians.
They're concerned about how children's education is being infiltrated. They
feel by you know, racial narratives and gender narratives that
they think are um destructive to their children's future. And
they feel that there's the slippery slope that we're on
(18:57):
the very edge of and that they are fighting back
against on the front lines in Shasta County to help
prevent you know, America as a nation from declining into
you know, abject moral failure. There was also a powerful
feeling of disenfranchisement. A lot of conservatives in Shasta feel
alienated from the rest of the state, like they live
(19:19):
on an island in a sea of liberals. Those feelings,
Annally said have helped shape the dream of the State
of Jefferson. This is a movement in parts of northern
California and southern Oregon to create a new and separate state,
one that embraces conservative values in lifestyles. This fantasy state
(19:40):
would give residents more political representation. The whole mentality about
you know, wanting to succeed from California to become you know,
our own state here is very long standing, and I
think it's really much deeper than what we've seen politically
over the last several years. The State of Jefferson has
(20:02):
a healthy base of support in Shasta County. You see
the flags two black x is over a yellow circle,
sold at gas stations and hardware stores. You see it
on billboards along the highway. There's even a local radio
show called Jefferson State of Mine. Just listen to their
amazing jingle state of Mind Son. So when a listen
(20:36):
and Carlos came onto the scene with their message of
quote taking back government, it wasn't hard for them to
get traction. The State of Jefferson supporters latched on because
it was like their fantasy might finally have legs. And
you know who else joined in. A lot of let's
say regular conservatives as in Republicans who believed in small
(21:01):
government and low taxes. These were nurses, teachers, cops, construction
workers who were not radicals, at least not before the pandemic.
They were also furious about the government's COVID response, all
the restrictions, all the emergency spending, and in Shasta's growing
(21:21):
far right movement, some of them found at home. So
what happened here in Shasta County is complex and nuanced
and multilayered, as political movements and people movements always are.
But when we label everyone as the same within that movement,
were way over simplifying the complexity of humanity and the
(21:43):
complexity of what drives people to take political action. Once
upon a time, these disparate groups of conservatives might have
had very little in common, but COVID gave them a
common foe, the government. What they needed now was an
elected leader, someone in a position to represent them and
(22:03):
to change the system they so deeply mistrusted. Enter Patrick
Henry Jones, a local politician who had once served on
the Reading City Council and made a name for himself
through his Tea Party antics. In summer, he launched a
campaign for a spot on the Board of Supervisors. Let's
open Shasta County now. Hello, I'm Patrick Henry Jones, running
(22:24):
for Supervisor District four. The coronavirus should be taken seriously
for those at risk. However, shutting down the entire county
is the wrong approach. This has had a severe impact
on our businesses and our families. The current board. Once again,
I want to remind you that the county did not
exactly shut down in the way Patrick Jones described, but
(22:46):
that doesn't matter. He ran and won. Now he had
a seat on the county Board of Supervisors, and that
meant Supervisor les Ba, the one who had wanted to
let Alyssa inside the me ing, had an ally on
the board. Soon it was the beginning of and what
(23:07):
was happening locally in Shasta County suddenly became an eerie
precursor to January six, because just the day before, on
January five, there was something like a mini insurrection. Let
me explain. The Shasta County Board of Supervisors was scheduled
(23:27):
for a meeting that day. COVID cases were spiking, so
the supervisors had voted to meet virtually, but instead of
following that vote, the newly elected Supervisor Patrick Jones made
good on his campaign pledge two of Shasta county supervisors
were in the board chambers today during a virtual meeting.
(23:48):
They were joined by dozens of people unhappy with how
the county is being run, among other things. He showed
up in person along with les Ba, and opened the
doors to the meeting, allowing a stream of angry residents
inside the chamber. This is about not just opening up
the chambers, but opening up the county, opening up California.
(24:14):
Patrick Jones and les Ba sat side by side at
the horseshoe table, looking satisfied, while people stood at the
podium to speak their minds. Some made threats. One woman
warned of a civil war and another man said this
when the ballot box is gone, there is only the
cartridge box. You have made bullets expensive, but luckily for you,
(24:39):
ropes are reusable. The other county supervisors watched online, stunned.
Democratic norms were being shattered. Here's Mary. If we're going
to have a board and we're going to make decisions
and two of the board members defy those decisions, how
do we be effective as a governing body. A few
(24:59):
weeks later, the board voted three to to censure supervisor's
less Ba and Patrick Jones for breaking the rules and
opening the chambers. At that meeting, Mary called for decorum
and no further divisive behavior, but privately she was nervous.
She feared the events of January six would further embolden
(25:22):
the far right. She feared for her safety and for
the stability of local government. And as it turned out,
the biggest challenge to the supervisor's authority was about to
come in a recall that's coming up after the break.
(25:44):
It was a Sunday afternoon in early February. Over the
airwaves of a local radio station, a group of far
right activists in Shasta County were announcing their plan to
recall three county supervisors, Mary Rick, who you met earlier,
Leonard Moody, and Joe commenting their biggest complaint these leaders
(26:06):
weren't doing enough to fight state mandates. We have a
hundred and twenty days to recall the county officials that
we are going to recall. We've got to get five
thousand votes per district during that time. A lot of
people are saying it's going to be really tough, and
I'll I don't disagree with that, But at the same time,
(26:28):
we're going to be innovative in the process, But we're
going to get this done swiftly and quickly, and we're
gonna show every county in America how to get it
done swiftly and quickly. That was a man named Jeremy Edwardson.
I'll explain who Jeremy is in a second, but for
the moment, just know that in the studio next to
him was Carlos Sapota, along with a handful of other
(26:51):
militia leaders in state of Jefferson advocates. The plan to
recall Shasta County supervisors was being driven by pandemic ray
age and a deep mistrust of government. But recalls are
supposed to be a tool to fix the government, not
dismantle it. Let me just shed some light on why
(27:15):
recalls exist. Recalls were introduced in California more than a
hundred years ago. It was supposed to be a way
for voters to remove politicians doing things like stealing or
having salacious affairs. Most states have similar systems, they just
common different flavors. It's supposed to be difficult to pull
(27:36):
off a recall because to remove a local official in California,
you have to collect physical signatures from a certain percentage
of voters. Who live in their district and Shasta that
meant several thousand per supervisor, and it takes money. Professional
signature gathers tend to charge anywhere from a buck to
(27:58):
six bucks per autograph, depending on the campaign. But here's
the problem. According to Matt Lesigne, a political science professor
at California State University, Long Beach, in theory, the recall
is a mechanism to reduce corruption and incompetence in office,
but in practice the last couple of years, in the
(28:20):
last few decades have shown that it is a political
strategic move to check ideological complaints. If you're willing to
spend the money, you can get pretty much whatever you
want on a California ballot, like attempting to recall Governor
Gavin Newsom, or trying to cap property taxes, or even
(28:42):
asking voters whether porn actors should wear condoms. So in
Shasta County, recall organizers started fundraising, but not just for
the campaign itself. There was also a tandem effort to
televise the whole thing in a very twenty century way
on YouTube. We're documenting this whole thing in a docuseries.
(29:05):
Subsequent episodes will come out the last Friday of every
month for ten months, so really throughout this year people
can watch and follow along and see what it takes
to turn your county into a county that's governed by
representatives who understand and follow the Constitution. Jeremy Edwardson was
(29:26):
a soft spoken guy you heard earlier announcing the recalls
somewhat boring mechanics. On that same radio show. He went
on to explain that a series called Red, White and
Blueprint would follow organizers as they tried to unseat the
three supervisors. He wanted to show other Americans how to
do the same thing, hence the name Red White and Blueprint,
(29:50):
and Jeremy was the producer. Well, you might expect something
subdued from the way Jeremy speaks, this series was anything but.
Just listen to the trade, Larry My, fellow Americans, it
is time to take our freedom back. People all over
the country are getting fed up with all the lockdowns
and now in the first episode of Red White and
(30:12):
Blueprint aired the following months. It had crisp cinematography and
an emotional score stitched into reality TV style camera work.
It showed Carlos in the Gang as freedom loving cowboys.
There are shots at them sitting on horses in a circle.
There they are around a campfire talking about they're out
(30:34):
of control. Government said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
We all stood by and let the world get to
this point at some level. Now, what are we going
to do to move? Welcome to the Red, White and Blueprint.
In other words, this was good looking propaganda, these videos,
(30:55):
which were full of falsehoods. Maybe you want to join
the club, be heart of this far right movement, And
pretty soon news articles were name checking Red White and
Blueprint as the recalls driving force. Clearly, Jeremy's documentary was
drawing attention, so I wanted to talk to him. I
(31:16):
wanted to ask Jeremy why was the far right targeting
the county government, especially when it was the state's rules
they hated so much. But he wasn't easy to get
a hold of. I tried the general email of the
Red White and Blueprint site, no luck. Then I pressed
one of my malicious sources and he passed along my message.
(31:40):
My producer Kathleen and I met Jeremy at his studio
where there's a carpeted room for recording and a big
mixing board. He had a collection of electric guitars on
the wall, including a really nice Gibson. When he's not
making episodes for Red, White, and Blueprint, Jeremy is a
successful full time music you, sir. The studio was where
(32:02):
he recorded some of the biggest names in Christian contemporary
worship music, like Cherry Job, who was nearly two million
monthly listeners on Spotify, and Sean Fot who's let Us
(32:23):
Worship rallies protests open churches back up during pandemic shutdowns
drew tens of thousands of people across the country. Politicians
can press releases, they can make up threats, they can
shut down parks, they can put up fences, but they
can't stop the Church of Christ. Jeremy said his involvement
(32:45):
in the Shasta recall started with his frustration with the
US government. He saw the federal COVID relief money as
wasteful and it bothered him. But he also felt like
when it came to national and even state politics, he
didn't really have much of a say. His friends told
him he could probably have a bigger impact if he
(33:07):
directed his attention closer to home, and I was like,
that's interesting because I never hear anybody talk about local government.
It's the one part of government that is and has
been for a long time, completely ignored for the most part.
It struck him that ignorance was part of the reason
so many people in Shasta County now felt outraged, because
(33:30):
I just saw that there's apathy from constituents when it
comes to local government, and there shouldn't be a big
surprise in a time like this that our local elected
officials are completely clued out to the needs of the
people because we've never ever paid attention. I felt this
(33:52):
answer to be so interesting and relatable. It's true that
local government is probably the worst understood all the parts
our democracy. That was actually something that drew me to
this story in the first place, the way that radical
politics are up ending a system of government that so
few of us understand. So Jeremy explained, he wanted to
(34:13):
make a documentary that would get people to pay more attention.
But it wasn't just that. Jeremy told me he'd studied
with the founding Fathers wrote about government by the people
for the people. He felt that his county wasn't living
up to that principle. What he wanted were elected officials
who would fight for the constitutionalism he personally believed in.
(34:38):
I don't think there would have been a recall if
the people felt like the supervisors were on their side, Like,
as an example, the supervisor would be like, we think
it should be the parents choice whether or not their
kids get the COVID nineteen vaccine in order to be
allowed in school. However, we feel that it's best a
(35:00):
fly under the radar and not say anything to the state.
And their reasoning is because they're nervous about ruffling feathers
and not getting funding from the state, and I just
think that's a bad position to have. To clarify, Jeremy
was telling me he thought county leaders were too passive
about standing up to the state's COVID mandates. He wanted
(35:23):
the county to fight, and he didn't think that the
state would pull funding or punish Shasta like Mary feared
it would. Having a county like Shasta County come out
with resolutions and and um really advocate on behalf of
the people of this county. I think other counties that
are like minded could it could stiffen their spines and
(35:44):
they could join in and we could be more of
a resounding chorus to Sacramento and let Governor Newsome know
that we don't agree with these particular mandates. Jeremy was
generous with his time as we peppered him with questions,
trying to understand the roots of his beliefs, and towards
the end, he asked us about podcasts. He had an
(36:07):
idea for one, and he was excited to talk about it.
Telling stories was something we shared, after all. But Jeremy
lived in a very different bubble than mine. He and
his friends saw the government as out of control and unaccountable,
and they said they wanted quote constitutionalism instead to have
the biggest impact. They set their sights on the county.
(36:30):
But to me, the kind of leadership they wanted instead
didn't sound democratic. They wanted to remake the system to
serve themselves. And I'll be honest, that scared the hell
out of me, because, boy, had Jeremy packaged these ideas
and a pretty rapper red white and blueprint cast Carlos
(36:50):
Spata as the star of the recall movement. Don't forget
this was the bar owner and militia member who warned
of a bloody confrontation just a few months earlier, Yet
here he is speaking into the camera frame as I've
sort of become a leader in this movement. I've realized
that people want nothing more than to get on board
(37:13):
to get their freedom back, and we can help him
do that. And that's exactly what I'm doing. If I
can have one person to live a better life, If
one person's life improves because of something that I've done
or something that I've said, that makes this whole project
worth it. And although I really don't like this stuff,
I never want to be part of a production or
a movie, or never asked for any kind of stardom
(37:36):
or fame. I certainly, you know, shy away from that
kind of thing. But if my voice gets hurt and
helps people, if my kids have a better American living,
then this is absolutely worth it. Jeremy's documentary made Carlos's
response to COVID nineteen sound not only logical but necessary.
It cast him in this far right alliance of militia members,
(37:59):
State of Jefferson supporters, and outraged parents like Lissa, who
compared COVID mandates to slavery, as model citizens trying to
reform government. The question was would a YouTube series be
enough to put the recall on an actual ballot, because
you need more than just YouTube subscribers. You need signatures,
(38:22):
and you need money. Enter revere En Salmo, a Connecticut
based son of a billionaire X Marine and former Hollywood filmmaker.
He was a powerful force in Shasta County politics. He'd
most recently backed Patrick Jones campaign for supervisor, and the
amount he donated was not normal for a local election.
(38:46):
It was a hundred thousand dollars, quite possibly the largest
contribution in Shasta County history. But Reverge was just getting
started with bank rolling this far right revolt. Who was
this reversion, Salmo? And what did you want? And if
this recall movement was supposed to be about local control
(39:08):
of government, why was this man who lived three thousand
miles away so heavily invested. That's next time on bed
Rock USA. This episode was reported and hosted by me
Laura Bliss. Kathleen Quillian is our senior producer. Samantha Story
(39:30):
is our story editor and executive producer. We had additional
editing help from Nicole Flato and Francesco Levie. Original music
and scoring by Zachary Walter, and audio engineering by Blake Naples.
Jennifer Sandag is head of Bloomberg City Lab. Bed Rock
USA is a production of Bloomberg City Lab and I
(39:50):
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Y
We really did everything we possibly could to make it
as easy on people in Shasta County. That's Mary Rickart.
She sits on the Board of Supervisors in Shasta County, California.
That means she's an elected official, someone who helps manage
the budget and makes local policies. But we didn't connish anybody.
We you know, there were restaurants that never closed, there
(00:22):
were barbershops that never closed. Shasta County is a deep
red pocket of California, a few hours north of Sacramento.
Mary is a long time Republican and considers herself very conservative.
I voted for Trump, I'll be perfectly honest. I didn't
care for the man personally, but he really helped agriculture.
(00:45):
He really did. He cut back on regulation and made
our lives much better. I mean, when you're overregulated, it's
it's hard to do business, it's expensive to do business.
When Mary was first put it in as county super
riser in she wanted to work on local issues like
wildfire protection and mental health. Then the pandemic hit and
(01:09):
Mary's job turned upside down because the way it brought
government into presidents lives. I met a lot of people,
angry people like Carlos Spata, the bar owner and militia
member you heard in the last episode warning of violent
revolution at a Shasta County board meeting. If you don't
hear the seriousness of my voice, I hope you open
(01:30):
your ears. You absolutely listen to what I'm saying, because
this is a warning for what's coming. It's not gonna
be peaceful, what's longer. It's not gonna be ros on speeches.
It's not gonna be got it outside say pledgeible legiance.
It's not gonna be waving flats. It's gonna be real.
It wasn't just Carlos at meeting. After meeting, Mary and
her colleagues heard from a side of Shasta that she
(01:52):
had never paid much attention to before. These were folks
from a range of deeply conservative backgrounds and ideologies, connected
by a belief and the grave threat of government overreach.
When the ballot box is gone, there is only the
cartridge box. You have made bullets expensive, but luckily for you,
(02:13):
ropes are reusable. In Mary's eyes, COVID created an opening
for once fringe far right views to take center stage
in local politics, and it created an opening to put
those views into action. What it was is the pandemic
was used as a weapon. The intensity that drove some people,
(02:34):
she said, was unsettling. Politics have become people's religion now,
and I think that's a true statement. I do think
that politics have become a religion for these people. The
Constitution has become their bible, and I think they need
to find balance in their life, because when you put
politics before God, it can have some really unintended consequences.
(03:00):
In the last episode, we brought you to Squim, Washington,
where the forced resignation of a beloved city manager by
a q and On mayor triggered a movement to stop him.
And we introduced you to Shasta County, where the pandemic
fanned the flames of government mistrust and sparked a recall
of Republican leaders. We'll be digging into Squim later in
(03:22):
the season, but for the next few episodes, we're going
to stay in Shasta, where extreme ideologies have taken hold
at the local level. In this episode, we're going to
meet some of Shasta's far right activists, including a bar owner,
a mother, and a music producer, and we'll hear from
the moderate Republicans who didn't see them coming. I wanted
(03:47):
to get to know the folks leading this movement, What
were the beliefs that drove them, and how did the
pandemic help those ideas catch fire. The answers weren't what
I expected. People were furious about pandemic rules, but like
Mary said, county leaders weren't even really enforcing them. So
why then were people so angry and what would that
(04:09):
anger drive them to do. You're listening to Bedrock USA,
a production of Bloomberg City Lab and I Heart Radio,
a podcast about political extremism, small town life, and the
fight for democracy. I'm your host Laura Bliss, my producer
(04:32):
Kathleen and I met Supervisor Mary Rickard at the Shasta
County government building in downtown Reading. That's the biggest city
in the area, with about people. Mary had spent her
life as a cattle rancher and the decor in her
office did not disappoint you. Yeah, I have pictures of
(04:54):
cows just so I feel comfortable. There were pictures of
cows everywhere, ranching prizes and hats, sassy sayings. Mary said.
The first signs of turmoil showed up at a county
supervisor meeting in May the supervisors were meeting in person
at the County Chambers, but for safety reasons to stop
(05:14):
the spread of COVID, they kept the doors closed to
the public and broadcast everything online. But a group of
locals showed up anyway, and they wanted in. There was
one particular person who had a bullhorn and a group
of about people and they were being very disruptive in
the foyer about wanting into the meeting. That person was
(05:36):
a Listen McEwen, a county resident and mother of two.
She was leading the group of like minded folks to
protest the COVID rules. Melissa had a bullhorn which she
used to yell through the glass doors separating the board
chambers from the lobby outside. Some of the other protesters
were tape across their mouths, apparently a symbol of their
(05:59):
perceived muz ling. And what Alyssa shouted was revealing about
the way she personally thought the government should work. And
our declaration goes on to say that whenever any form
of government becomes destructive of these as, it is the
right of the people to alter for abolish it and
established new government. You don't no longer have our consent
(06:21):
to business. You are not responsible for our Alyssa was
asking the supervisors to defy state orders and reopen the county,
and she was citing a quote from the Declaration of Independence,
(06:43):
the part that warns that if the government gets to
infringe e on fundamental rights, it's the right of the
people to change or abolish it. From where Mary was sitting,
this made no sense. For one, it was bizarre to
her that Alyssa was directing so much anger at the county, because,
(07:03):
like I said earlier, the county actually wasn't doing much
to enforce California's COVID mandates. Yes, it had declared a
pandemic state of emergency, and it was following the rules
for government operations, but crucially, it was mostly leaving businesses
and individuals alone. A lot of bars and restaurants stayed
(07:24):
open without repercussions. An annual rodeo even drew huge crowds
after the Shasta County Sheriff's office said it wouldn't stop it.
It was also bizarre to Mary that Alissa was citing
the Declaration of Independence, which doesn't actually create any laws,
certainly not any laws giving authority to county governments. Here's
(07:46):
how the law works. Counties are subsidiaries of the state
according to the California Constitution, so even if the county
was looking the other way and not enforcing all of
the state COVID mandates, it didn't have the power to
overrule them. So it was all the more puzzling to
Marry that one of her colleagues, Supervisor less Bah, who
(08:10):
was sitting next to her in the chamber that day,
encouraged Alyssa, and Supervisor Ball had said, oh, well, you
can let her in, you can let her in as chair,
and he initiated. He was really trying to stir it up.
So this is where it started, and I find it
extremely disappointing that one of the supervisors was responsible for
(08:35):
basically that kind of behavior, and it's continued. What Mary
is saying is that this protest, this loud disruption of
county business, was encouraged by her colleague, Supervisor less Ba.
In the video of the meeting, you can hear him
trying to persuade Mary and the other supervisors to let
(08:55):
Alyssa inside. Why he did this I never got to ask.
Vaughan never responded to my requests for an interview, and
Alyssa declined to speak with me. But from Mary's point
of view, Supervisor BA, who had been on the board
for sixteen years, was making it comfortable for people like
Alyssa to flout the rules, and not just Alyssa. At
(09:19):
meeting after meeting, she was joined by dozens of angry
people who called on the supervisors to defy the state
and lift the restrictions. And sometimes the things they did
were shocking, things you'd never expect to see in a
local government meeting. After the break, we meet one of
the angriest Shasta residents. In August, Carlos Sappada, warned of
(09:47):
a violent uprising in a speech that went viral. I
ampably the only person that has a boss say what
I'm saying right now that we're building, we're organizing, and
we'll work with law enforcement or without law enforcement. And
septemb Or a man dressed as the Grim Reaper tried
to set a surgical mask on fire. In October, another
(10:07):
guy attempted to place all five supervisors under citizens arrest.
Both of them had to be escorted out. Mary struggled
to understand why any of this was happening. It just
didn't make sense to her, but the more I dug in,
the more I understood that this group felt with deep
conviction that their fundamental rights were being violated. But I
(10:32):
also understood why Mary was so dumb struck, because their
logic was self serving. On the same trip that I
visited Mary, I also talked to Carlos Spada. We met
at his bar Palomina Room. I'm sorry to keep you.
(10:53):
Carlos had threatened blood on the streets, a violent confrontation
with or without police. And while that might sound like
bravado to some ears empty threats, the reality is he
was really scaring people in Shasta. So did he mean
what he said? I asked him for an explanation, and
(11:14):
he said he wasn't really calling for violence at all.
I was warning them of violence, absolutely, you know, So
what's wrong with that? I mean, that's a great thing,
the fact that I warned them and said, hey, guys,
I'm talking to a lot of people every day. There's
people coming to me every single day that are at
the boiling point. There's people that are ready ready to
either kill themselves or kill somebody, and that sucks. You know,
(11:35):
people are feeling like, man, I'm not gonna be able
to feed my family. I'm not gonna have a job.
I mean, what am I gonna do. I'm not gonna
be able to put feel in my vehicle to go
to work. What do you tell these people? I mean,
that's a boiling point, you know. So for me to
tell the county, hey, this is what's coming was a
very fair and adequate warning. So to think that I
(11:56):
was calling for violence, I was doing the oppositely. I'll say, hey, guys,
let's do something about this. You know what, why why
don't you guys stop all this bullshit so that this
doesn't happen? Because we just want to live peace. Carlos
insisted he was telling his leaders that if they take
the right actions, they could avoid violence. He thought his
rhetoric was a logical response to what he saw as
(12:18):
threats to his own survival. In other words, he was
rationalizing his extreme speech, and he doubled down on it.
In the next breath. Carlos got angry at people who
reported his bar for staying open during COVID, and he said,
we can play that game. If you guys want to
want to go to war, It's not gonna be pretty.
(12:40):
Once again, it sure sounds like he's threatening violence. Lissa McEwen,
the Lady with the Bullhorn, was also a fan of
this kind of extreme rhetoric. Have a listen to this
clip from a local podcast called Sovereign Minds. And I
wasn't a constitutionalist before they started. I just sort of.
(13:00):
I had been paying attention to what was going on
and it was upsetting and I knew deep down something
wasn't right. And where I see this going And I
really don't mean this in a hyperbole, although it all
sound crazy, is is slavery. And I won't allow my
children to grow up enslaved. I will do everything in
my power to keep them free. Just to take a
(13:22):
beat on that, Melissa is saying that COVID was her
political wake up call, that she wasn't paying much attention
before the pandemic hit, and before comparing California's COVID rules
to slavery, she calls herself a constitutionalist, her new political identity. Constitutionalist.
(13:47):
That's a term I heard again and again in talking
to people on the far right. It's been around for
a long time, but what does it mean in this
current political moment. I called up an expert to hear more.
Name is Mary McCord. I'm the executive director of the
Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, where I kept at
Georgetown Law and also a visiting professor of law. I
(14:10):
guess I wouldn't try to describe one definition of it
because I think it really sort of is in the
eye of the beholder, in the sense of the eye
of the person who's suggesting that they are a constitutionalist,
and what we're seeing right now, I think in two
building off last several years. It goes back even decades,
but it's become much more prominent recently. I think, is
(14:33):
this notion of being a constitutional patriot, being someone who
is committed in their view to upholding and protecting the Constitution.
But of course it's the Constitution as they interpret it,
regardless of whether that comports with history, text, or Supreme
Court precedent. That's what can be dangerous about this ideology
(14:56):
because throwing around words like the Constitution and patriotism can
sound very legit, but oftentimes, at least when we're talking
about some of the extremist movements, they are not really
referring to the real Constitution. This far right version of
(15:17):
quote constitutionalism has led to violence. For example, in the
lead up to January six, Rudy Giuliani falsely told Donald
Trump that Vice President Mike Pence had the constitutional authority
to throw out the election results. Then there are the
sheriffs all over the country who refuse to enforce state
(15:39):
gun laws and call themselves quote constitutional sheriffs. And many
anti maskers invoked what they called their constitutional rights in
rejecting COVID rules. But that's just not how the constitution works. Well,
part of the core tenant of the Constitution is separation
(15:59):
of powers. Right, we have three branches of government, the executive,
the legislative, and the judiciary. And it is the judiciary
branches role to interpret the law, including interpreting the Constitution.
And so when private individuals decided to just usurp the
courts and declare for themselves what the Constitution means and says,
(16:21):
that is completely flaunting the Constitution itself, which provides a
process for this. So again, this doing things in name
of you know, in the name of the constitution, is
actually just the very opposite. The Constitution nowhere, nowhere authorizes
the people to overrule government processes outside those government processes.
(16:45):
And yet that is what many Shasta residents were doing.
They were fighting government rules in whatever way they saw fit,
using extreme rhetoric and violent threats to get their way.
It's hard to over eight how disturbing all this was
to Supervisor Mary Rickard. In her eyes, people like Alyssa
(17:07):
and Carlos were violating the ground rules for a functioning democracy,
and if they gave in to their demands, Mary feared
Shasta County could lose funding through wildfires and snowstorms. Mary
had always seen Shasta as a place that came together.
Now these far right activists were grabbing the political spotlight
(17:29):
and driving a wedge between themselves and others in the community.
If people are listening to this and they think this
can't happen to them, Never in a million years did
I think this would happen in Shasta County. It just
didn't seem possible, but it did. But as Kathleen and
I stepped out of Mary's office, I wondered should it
(17:52):
have been so unexpected? Because in some ways Shasta County
was an obvious place for a right wing revolt after
the break the origins of Shasta's Session movement, and the
community is made up of mostly white um mostly deeply
(18:16):
conservative people, many of whom have lived here for generations.
That was Analyze Pierce, the founder and editor of a
local news site called Shasta Scout. I called up Analyze
because I still didn't fully understand what was simmering beneath
all the anger and Shasta. That was this deep sense
(18:36):
of mistrust in government, in science, even in fellow Californians.
They're concerned about how children's education is being infiltrated. They
feel by you know, racial narratives and gender narratives that
they think are um destructive to their children's future. And
they feel that there's the slippery slope that we're on
(18:57):
the very edge of and that they are fighting back
against on the front lines in Shasta County to help
prevent you know, America as a nation from declining into
you know, abject moral failure. There was also a powerful
feeling of disenfranchisement. A lot of conservatives in Shasta feel
alienated from the rest of the state, like they live
(19:19):
on an island in a sea of liberals. Those feelings,
Annally said have helped shape the dream of the State
of Jefferson. This is a movement in parts of northern
California and southern Oregon to create a new and separate state,
one that embraces conservative values in lifestyles. This fantasy state
(19:40):
would give residents more political representation. The whole mentality about
you know, wanting to succeed from California to become you know,
our own state here is very long standing, and I
think it's really much deeper than what we've seen politically
over the last several years. The State of Jefferson has
(20:02):
a healthy base of support in Shasta County. You see
the flags two black x is over a yellow circle,
sold at gas stations and hardware stores. You see it
on billboards along the highway. There's even a local radio
show called Jefferson State of Mine. Just listen to their
amazing jingle state of Mind Son. So when a listen
(20:36):
and Carlos came onto the scene with their message of
quote taking back government, it wasn't hard for them to
get traction. The State of Jefferson supporters latched on because
it was like their fantasy might finally have legs. And
you know who else joined in. A lot of let's
say regular conservatives as in Republicans who believed in small
(21:01):
government and low taxes. These were nurses, teachers, cops, construction
workers who were not radicals, at least not before the pandemic.
They were also furious about the government's COVID response, all
the restrictions, all the emergency spending, and in Shasta's growing
(21:21):
far right movement, some of them found at home. So
what happened here in Shasta County is complex and nuanced
and multilayered, as political movements and people movements always are.
But when we label everyone as the same within that movement,
were way over simplifying the complexity of humanity and the
(21:43):
complexity of what drives people to take political action. Once
upon a time, these disparate groups of conservatives might have
had very little in common, but COVID gave them a
common foe, the government. What they needed now was an
elected leader, someone in a position to represent them and
(22:03):
to change the system they so deeply mistrusted. Enter Patrick
Henry Jones, a local politician who had once served on
the Reading City Council and made a name for himself
through his Tea Party antics. In summer, he launched a
campaign for a spot on the Board of Supervisors. Let's
open Shasta County now. Hello, I'm Patrick Henry Jones, running
(22:24):
for Supervisor District four. The coronavirus should be taken seriously
for those at risk. However, shutting down the entire county
is the wrong approach. This has had a severe impact
on our businesses and our families. The current board. Once again,
I want to remind you that the county did not
exactly shut down in the way Patrick Jones described, but
(22:46):
that doesn't matter. He ran and won. Now he had
a seat on the county Board of Supervisors, and that
meant Supervisor les Ba, the one who had wanted to
let Alyssa inside the me ing, had an ally on
the board. Soon it was the beginning of and what
(23:07):
was happening locally in Shasta County suddenly became an eerie
precursor to January six, because just the day before, on
January five, there was something like a mini insurrection. Let
me explain. The Shasta County Board of Supervisors was scheduled
(23:27):
for a meeting that day. COVID cases were spiking, so
the supervisors had voted to meet virtually, but instead of
following that vote, the newly elected Supervisor Patrick Jones made
good on his campaign pledge two of Shasta county supervisors
were in the board chambers today during a virtual meeting.
(23:48):
They were joined by dozens of people unhappy with how
the county is being run, among other things. He showed
up in person along with les Ba, and opened the
doors to the meeting, allowing a stream of angry residents
inside the chamber. This is about not just opening up
the chambers, but opening up the county, opening up California.
(24:14):
Patrick Jones and les Ba sat side by side at
the horseshoe table, looking satisfied, while people stood at the
podium to speak their minds. Some made threats. One woman
warned of a civil war and another man said this
when the ballot box is gone, there is only the
cartridge box. You have made bullets expensive, but luckily for you,
(24:39):
ropes are reusable. The other county supervisors watched online, stunned.
Democratic norms were being shattered. Here's Mary. If we're going
to have a board and we're going to make decisions
and two of the board members defy those decisions, how
do we be effective as a governing body. A few
(24:59):
weeks later, the board voted three to to censure supervisor's
less Ba and Patrick Jones for breaking the rules and
opening the chambers. At that meeting, Mary called for decorum
and no further divisive behavior, but privately she was nervous.
She feared the events of January six would further embolden
(25:22):
the far right. She feared for her safety and for
the stability of local government. And as it turned out,
the biggest challenge to the supervisor's authority was about to
come in a recall that's coming up after the break.
(25:44):
It was a Sunday afternoon in early February. Over the
airwaves of a local radio station, a group of far
right activists in Shasta County were announcing their plan to
recall three county supervisors, Mary Rick, who you met earlier,
Leonard Moody, and Joe commenting their biggest complaint these leaders
(26:06):
weren't doing enough to fight state mandates. We have a
hundred and twenty days to recall the county officials that
we are going to recall. We've got to get five
thousand votes per district during that time. A lot of
people are saying it's going to be really tough, and
I'll I don't disagree with that, But at the same time,
(26:28):
we're going to be innovative in the process, But we're
going to get this done swiftly and quickly, and we're
gonna show every county in America how to get it
done swiftly and quickly. That was a man named Jeremy Edwardson.
I'll explain who Jeremy is in a second, but for
the moment, just know that in the studio next to
him was Carlos Sapota, along with a handful of other
(26:51):
militia leaders in state of Jefferson advocates. The plan to
recall Shasta County supervisors was being driven by pandemic ray
age and a deep mistrust of government. But recalls are
supposed to be a tool to fix the government, not
dismantle it. Let me just shed some light on why
(27:15):
recalls exist. Recalls were introduced in California more than a
hundred years ago. It was supposed to be a way
for voters to remove politicians doing things like stealing or
having salacious affairs. Most states have similar systems, they just
common different flavors. It's supposed to be difficult to pull
(27:36):
off a recall because to remove a local official in California,
you have to collect physical signatures from a certain percentage
of voters. Who live in their district and Shasta that
meant several thousand per supervisor, and it takes money. Professional
signature gathers tend to charge anywhere from a buck to
(27:58):
six bucks per autograph, depending on the campaign. But here's
the problem. According to Matt Lesigne, a political science professor
at California State University, Long Beach, in theory, the recall
is a mechanism to reduce corruption and incompetence in office,
but in practice the last couple of years, in the
(28:20):
last few decades have shown that it is a political
strategic move to check ideological complaints. If you're willing to
spend the money, you can get pretty much whatever you
want on a California ballot, like attempting to recall Governor
Gavin Newsom, or trying to cap property taxes, or even
(28:42):
asking voters whether porn actors should wear condoms. So in
Shasta County, recall organizers started fundraising, but not just for
the campaign itself. There was also a tandem effort to
televise the whole thing in a very twenty century way
on YouTube. We're documenting this whole thing in a docuseries.
(29:05):
Subsequent episodes will come out the last Friday of every
month for ten months, so really throughout this year people
can watch and follow along and see what it takes
to turn your county into a county that's governed by
representatives who understand and follow the Constitution. Jeremy Edwardson was
(29:26):
a soft spoken guy you heard earlier announcing the recalls
somewhat boring mechanics. On that same radio show. He went
on to explain that a series called Red, White and
Blueprint would follow organizers as they tried to unseat the
three supervisors. He wanted to show other Americans how to
do the same thing, hence the name Red White and Blueprint,
(29:50):
and Jeremy was the producer. Well, you might expect something
subdued from the way Jeremy speaks, this series was anything but.
Just listen to the trade, Larry My, fellow Americans, it
is time to take our freedom back. People all over
the country are getting fed up with all the lockdowns
and now in the first episode of Red White and
(30:12):
Blueprint aired the following months. It had crisp cinematography and
an emotional score stitched into reality TV style camera work.
It showed Carlos in the Gang as freedom loving cowboys.
There are shots at them sitting on horses in a circle.
There they are around a campfire talking about they're out
(30:34):
of control. Government said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
We all stood by and let the world get to
this point at some level. Now, what are we going
to do to move? Welcome to the Red, White and Blueprint.
In other words, this was good looking propaganda, these videos,
(30:55):
which were full of falsehoods. Maybe you want to join
the club, be heart of this far right movement, And
pretty soon news articles were name checking Red White and
Blueprint as the recalls driving force. Clearly, Jeremy's documentary was
drawing attention, so I wanted to talk to him. I
(31:16):
wanted to ask Jeremy why was the far right targeting
the county government, especially when it was the state's rules
they hated so much. But he wasn't easy to get
a hold of. I tried the general email of the
Red White and Blueprint site, no luck. Then I pressed
one of my malicious sources and he passed along my message.
(31:40):
My producer Kathleen and I met Jeremy at his studio
where there's a carpeted room for recording and a big
mixing board. He had a collection of electric guitars on
the wall, including a really nice Gibson. When he's not
making episodes for Red, White, and Blueprint, Jeremy is a
successful full time music you, sir. The studio was where
(32:02):
he recorded some of the biggest names in Christian contemporary
worship music, like Cherry Job, who was nearly two million
monthly listeners on Spotify, and Sean Fot who's let Us
(32:23):
Worship rallies protests open churches back up during pandemic shutdowns
drew tens of thousands of people across the country. Politicians
can press releases, they can make up threats, they can
shut down parks, they can put up fences, but they
can't stop the Church of Christ. Jeremy said his involvement
(32:45):
in the Shasta recall started with his frustration with the
US government. He saw the federal COVID relief money as
wasteful and it bothered him. But he also felt like
when it came to national and even state politics, he
didn't really have much of a say. His friends told
him he could probably have a bigger impact if he
(33:07):
directed his attention closer to home, and I was like,
that's interesting because I never hear anybody talk about local government.
It's the one part of government that is and has
been for a long time, completely ignored for the most part.
It struck him that ignorance was part of the reason
so many people in Shasta County now felt outraged, because
(33:30):
I just saw that there's apathy from constituents when it
comes to local government, and there shouldn't be a big
surprise in a time like this that our local elected
officials are completely clued out to the needs of the
people because we've never ever paid attention. I felt this
(33:52):
answer to be so interesting and relatable. It's true that
local government is probably the worst understood all the parts
our democracy. That was actually something that drew me to
this story in the first place, the way that radical
politics are up ending a system of government that so
few of us understand. So Jeremy explained, he wanted to
(34:13):
make a documentary that would get people to pay more attention.
But it wasn't just that. Jeremy told me he'd studied
with the founding Fathers wrote about government by the people
for the people. He felt that his county wasn't living
up to that principle. What he wanted were elected officials
who would fight for the constitutionalism he personally believed in.
(34:38):
I don't think there would have been a recall if
the people felt like the supervisors were on their side, Like,
as an example, the supervisor would be like, we think
it should be the parents choice whether or not their
kids get the COVID nineteen vaccine in order to be
allowed in school. However, we feel that it's best a
(35:00):
fly under the radar and not say anything to the state.
And their reasoning is because they're nervous about ruffling feathers
and not getting funding from the state, and I just
think that's a bad position to have. To clarify, Jeremy
was telling me he thought county leaders were too passive
about standing up to the state's COVID mandates. He wanted
(35:23):
the county to fight, and he didn't think that the
state would pull funding or punish Shasta like Mary feared
it would. Having a county like Shasta County come out
with resolutions and and um really advocate on behalf of
the people of this county. I think other counties that
are like minded could it could stiffen their spines and
(35:44):
they could join in and we could be more of
a resounding chorus to Sacramento and let Governor Newsome know
that we don't agree with these particular mandates. Jeremy was
generous with his time as we peppered him with questions,
trying to understand the roots of his beliefs, and towards
the end, he asked us about podcasts. He had an
(36:07):
idea for one, and he was excited to talk about it.
Telling stories was something we shared, after all. But Jeremy
lived in a very different bubble than mine. He and
his friends saw the government as out of control and unaccountable,
and they said they wanted quote constitutionalism instead to have
the biggest impact. They set their sights on the county.
(36:30):
But to me, the kind of leadership they wanted instead
didn't sound democratic. They wanted to remake the system to
serve themselves. And I'll be honest, that scared the hell
out of me, because, boy, had Jeremy packaged these ideas
and a pretty rapper red white and blueprint cast Carlos
(36:50):
Spata as the star of the recall movement. Don't forget
this was the bar owner and militia member who warned
of a bloody confrontation just a few months earlier, Yet
here he is speaking into the camera frame as I've
sort of become a leader in this movement. I've realized
that people want nothing more than to get on board
(37:13):
to get their freedom back, and we can help him
do that. And that's exactly what I'm doing. If I
can have one person to live a better life, If
one person's life improves because of something that I've done
or something that I've said, that makes this whole project
worth it. And although I really don't like this stuff,
I never want to be part of a production or
a movie, or never asked for any kind of stardom
(37:36):
or fame. I certainly, you know, shy away from that
kind of thing. But if my voice gets hurt and
helps people, if my kids have a better American living,
then this is absolutely worth it. Jeremy's documentary made Carlos's
response to COVID nineteen sound not only logical but necessary.
It cast him in this far right alliance of militia members,
(37:59):
State of Jefferson supporters, and outraged parents like Lissa, who
compared COVID mandates to slavery, as model citizens trying to
reform government. The question was would a YouTube series be
enough to put the recall on an actual ballot, because
you need more than just YouTube subscribers. You need signatures,
(38:22):
and you need money. Enter revere En Salmo, a Connecticut
based son of a billionaire X Marine and former Hollywood filmmaker.
He was a powerful force in Shasta County politics. He'd
most recently backed Patrick Jones campaign for supervisor, and the
amount he donated was not normal for a local election.
(38:46):
It was a hundred thousand dollars, quite possibly the largest
contribution in Shasta County history. But Reverge was just getting
started with bank rolling this far right revolt. Who was
this reversion, Salmo? And what did you want? And if
this recall movement was supposed to be about local control
(39:08):
of government, why was this man who lived three thousand
miles away so heavily invested. That's next time on bed
Rock USA. This episode was reported and hosted by me
Laura Bliss. Kathleen Quillian is our senior producer. Samantha Story
(39:30):
is our story editor and executive producer. We had additional
editing help from Nicole Flato and Francesco Levie. Original music
and scoring by Zachary Walter, and audio engineering by Blake Naples.
Jennifer Sandag is head of Bloomberg City Lab. Bed Rock
USA is a production of Bloomberg City Lab and I
(39:50):
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Y
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