The Washington Post’s tagline is “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” And so, it does; ignorance is democracy’s most lethal enemy, for it is ignorance that fuels conspiracy theories and insurrection. An uneducated, and therefore gullible, citizenry is a tyrant’s dream. We have seen this phenomenon in other countries and in other times. And now we see it in America. January 6 was the most graphic example, but not the only one.

Shasta County is not the only place in California where such dangerously corrosive forces are at work (in 2022 the Southern Poverty Law Center identified 103 hate and anti-government groups active in the state); but the situation in Shasta can and should serve as an example of how and why things can go bad very quickly, and how a free and independent press can become a target of anti-democratic groups and individuals.

Ms. Doni Chamberlain, publisher/editor of a news café in Redding knows all too well just how dreadful things can get. Listen to Doni, and hear her story.