Chaos Comes Calling
The Battle Against the Far-Right Takeover of Small-Town America
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A harrowing tale of how polarization threatened to break apart two American communities and how one found a way back while the other splintered.
Donald Trump’s November 2016 electoral victory was the beginning of four years of demagogy, presidential name-calling, and—ten months into a pandemic—an incitement to violence that led a mob of thousands to descend on the Capitol in Washington, DC. Fueled by suspicion, conspiracy, and bigotry, a faction of Americans had decided to seize control. But the biggest effect of this right-wing wave may not have been on our national politics, but on the local governments of communities around the country.
In Chaos Comes Calling, Sasha Abramsky investigates the empowerment of the far-right over the past few years, stoked by the Trump presidency and the Covid-19 pandemic. He tells the parallel stories of two communities, Shasta County, California and Sequim, Washington, where toxic alliances of QAnoners, anti-vaxxers, Christian nationalists, militia supporters and other denizens of the far-right have worked to take control of the levers of power.
The trajectories of both communities expose the stark divisions and extremism that have come to define our political landscape over the past decade, and offer revealing glimpses of what the future may hold. While Sequim ultimately recalibrated in 2021, returning to rationality, Shasta County has descended further into a climate of intolerance and toxic divisiveness.
Chaos Comes Calling vividly captures both the regressive forces gaining momentum all over the country and the tireless efforts of citizens determined to organize against them.
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Two small towns grapple with a rising tide of right-wing conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric in this enthralling account. Journalist Abramsky (Jumping at Shadows) profiles residents of Sequim, Wash., and Shasta County, Calif., who experienced these developments firsthand, including Mary Rickert, chair of the Shasta County board of supervisors, who received violent threats for enforcing California's 2020 Covid mitigation measures, and Charlie Bush, Sequim's city manager, who was ousted over his opposition to the QAnon conspiracy theorizing of the town's mayor, William Armacost. Abramsky argues that while America has always had its "demagogues and political hustlers," today's brand of "irrationality" has a new quality—it's being spread "lightning fast," intensifying its potency. The bulk of the right-wing rhetoric he tracks was posted on Facebook, but Abramsky also highlights surprising and fascinating ways in which social media and radio work together as a hybrid media echo chamber: Armacost, for example, shared conspiracy theories on Facebook, but also went on local talk radio to discuss QAnon; and in 2023, when Sequim residents became fearful of an imminent "antifa attack," the rhetoric leapt from "Facebook Live warnings... to truckers' CB radios, the remaining log haulers in the region help... spread rumors." The result is an eye-opening close-up view of American politics.
