In a major victory for far-right extremists across California, a militia-backed movement has moved to replace moderate Republican leaders.

On Tuesday night, it appeared all but assured that ultra-conservative Shasta County voters had successfully recalled Supervisor Leonard Moty, a Republican and former Redding, California, police chief. Although votes are still being counted, if ousted, Moty’s votes will weigh in favor of the majority of the five-member board aligned with the militia members. 

Shasta County sits inside Redding, known as the “second sunniest city in the U.S.” has been something of a ticking time bomb, with residents deeply divided over COVID-19 mitigation measures and the government’s power. Many are ready to take control of the county—and preferably be armed while doing it. 

The Sacramento Bee reports that experts on extremism have been keeping a keen eye on this particular race as a bellwether of others to follow. From school boards to county boards, swarms of far-right activists such as the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, and Three Percenters have been showing up and violently threatening local lawmakers and community members with wild conspiracy theories and lies. Now these extremist groups are demanding political change on a local level. 

We know now that what may have started as anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers has turned into many of these militia groups escalating their extremism to the level of an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. 

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According to Talking Points Memo reporter Matt Shuham, local Shasta County militia member Carlos Zapata, a darling of the movement and a Marine Corps combat veteran, launched into a frightening torrent in August 2020 at a county supervisors’ meeting, threatening that “it’s not going to be peaceful much longer,” and “good citizens are going to turn to real concerned and revolutionary citizens real soon.”

“In Shasta County, we’re supposed to be red country up here, not blue country,” he said. “Take your masks off. Quit muzzling yourself. Join us. Fight with us against what’s going on in Sacramento.”

Two months later, Zapata showed up as a guest on Alex Jones’ show, InfoWars, and a few months later, he was on the incendiary “news” outlet, Fox, which published an article about a documentary series he’s supposedly producing titled, Red, White and Blueprint.

“Their agenda is, ‘If you don’t agree with us then we have to get rid of you,’” Moty told the Los Angeles Times. He added: “I am concerned for individuals in our community.”

In December, Ashley Sova—an anti-vaxxer, home-schooler, and member of the far-right Three Percenters movement—was sworn in on the Eatonville School Board, which is located in Pierce County, a rural district an hour outside of Seattle, Washington. Sova is the second Three Percenter on the five-person board. 

Southern Poverty Law Center defines Three Percenters as a “vanguard extremist movement that claims to be ready to carry out armed resistance to perceived tyranny.” It adds that their definition of tyranny is based on “radical conspiracy theories and paranoia rooted in the decades-old antigovernment extremist movement, and have repeatedly led to violence against America’s law enforcement, citizens and residents.”

“The race was basically sabotaged by the national narrative,” Sarah Cole, whose seat was taken by Sovac, told The Seattle Times. 

Militia-style groups like the ones in Eatonville and in Shasta County have pivoted from the fringe and have their sights set on a more traditional conservative political movement.

“If you’re going to make a change, you don’t do it by storming the Capitol. You make change by using the process that you’ve been given and starting at the bottom,” said Matt Marshall, founder of the Washington Three Percent movement and a member of the Eatonville School Board.

But the changes these groups want don’t come without intimidation and threats. 

In December, Proud Boys and some of the “Patriot” militia “turned up in Post Falls, Idaho to harass LGBTQ-friendly teens at libraries, mask-promoting school board members, and mall shops that require masks. White supremacists now openly march in rural capitals, threatening bystanders,” reports David Neiwert, a veteran documentarian of the militant right and a staff writer at Daily Kos. 

“These people are making it not a safe place for kids to gather by picketing and yelling at them as they go inside,” Post Falls native Michelle White told the Coeur d’Alene. "Creating an environment that is not safe is not OK.”