Bedrock, USA

In "Bedrock, USA" Bloomberg CityLab investigates how the far right is making inroads into local government, and profiles the people fighting back. Reporter Laura Bliss introduces us to Sequim, Washington and Shasta County, California.

In Sequim, the QAnon-boosting Mayor William Armacost forces his city manager to resign, just days after the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol shocking residents. Meanwhile in Shasta County, California, ...

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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The Shasta County recall campaign gets a boost from a vengeful out-of-state billionaire named Reverge Anselmo, who fought with the county years before. The campaign struggles to get off the ground. Meanwhile, Doni Chamberlain, a local journalist, accuses the campaign of spreading misinformation and having no plan to govern. She worries, if the campaign succeeds, the consequences will be dire. 

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The recall succeeds in removing one county supervisor, Leonard Moty. But it’s enough to gain the majority on the county board of supervisors. What do far-right leaders plan to do with their newfound power? One thing is clear: Top officials from across the county government leave in a mass exodus, as threats intensify. Far-right activists mount another campaign – this time for more elected county positions: The sheriff, the registra...

We leave Shasta for now. We will come back in a later episode to find out the election results. Meanwhile, we return to Sequim, where Mayor Armacost reveals his love of QAnon on live radio and later forces his city manager Charlie Bush to resign, in what some residents see as an act of troubling partisan bias. It turns out the beef between Armacost and Bush has roots in a controversial proposal to build an opioid addiction treatmen...

With their beloved city manager Charlie Bush gone, a group of Sequim residents unites to fight the intrusion of partisan politics in their local government. They call themselves the Good Governance League and mount a campaign for an upcoming city election. Their plan? To get their own candidates into office, and to vote out the QAnon mayor. But it’s not easy. It turns out the mayor has allies. Will they succeed?

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Election day in Sequim. The Good Governance League wins by a landslide. A new mayor will be installed. However, down south in Shasta, the future is uncertain. We go back to the far-right activists who are trying to install more of their candidates into elected office. Will their takeover be successful? In both Shasta and Sequim, some residents have awakened to the importance of local government. But can that engagement last? And wh...

There are five more episodes of “Bedrock, USA” in the works — and we want to hear from you. With the midterm elections coming up, we're wondering, what’s at stake in your town? Are you getting politically involved? What are you worried about? Do you have questions about how local politics work? 

Please go to bloomberg.com/bedrockusa and send us your stories and questions. Or email us a voice memo at bedrockusa@bloomberg.net.

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Bedrock, USA returns with an interview about election security. New hosts Kathleen Quillian and Samantha Storey talk to the editorial director of VoteBeat, Jessica Huseman, about what to expect at the polls. Going into the midterms, cybersecurity is top of mind, so is physical security for both the paper ballots and the people handling them. Huseman breaks down why the American election system is one of the most secure in the world...

This week on Bedrock, USA, hosts Kathleen Quillian and Samantha Storey speak to Doug Kronaizl, a senior staff writer for Ballotpedia, a nonprofit that tracks elections and ballot measures. Kronaizl studies conflicts on school board elections. For this episode, he breaks down what the education landscape looks like in the wake of pandemic mandates. He describes how conservatives are making inroads on education boards, pushing “paren...

Ever since the pandemic saw school boards explode into shouting matches over mask mandates, nothing has been the same. And Florida has been the epicenter of some of those battles. Leading the charge is Bridget Ziegler, mother of three, and chair of the Sarasota school board. She is against the teaching of CRT and gender identity, but she is pro protecting the rights of parents. And Governor Ron DeSantis endorses her. Bloomberg spen...

Bridget Ziegler is against the teaching of CRT and gender identity. She believes parents should have ultimate control over their children’s education. In chapter two of “The School Board Queen” we explore where these stances come from. We hear from a Republican woman who fought against communism in her kids’ schools in the 1950s. We hear some of the first instructional videos made for sex ed classes, including one on how to groom y...

In the final chapter of “The School Board Queen” we dig in with Bridget Ziegler. Her opponents have called her names – transphobic and racist. But she says she’ll take “the arrows of being called whatever” for what she believes in. She’s a champion of the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act – that’s the so-called Don’t Say Gay bill, which critics call unsupportive of the LGBTQ community. We want to know what it’s like to be a ...

Reality TV stars are freezing their eggs on camera. Lawmakers in DC are debating federal protection for IVF. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in slick startups that market fertility treatments for all. But this rapid growth has revealed cracks in the system. Misconception, a new series from Bloomberg’s Prognosis, follows reporter Kristen V. Brown on her own intimate journey as she uncovers the business of fertilit...