Chaos Comes Calling: The Battle Against the Far-Right takeover of Small Town America
by Sasha Abramsky, Bold Type Books 2024

I was talking recently with a leading educator from Washington County, the poorest county in Maine and home of some of its most conservative politics. He told me two disturbing  things. One is that difficult emotional and behavior problems are being exhibited regularly by the youngest kids just entering the schools–pre-schoolers and kindergarteners–with severe issues of anger, attention deficit, and control. Teachers are quitting because they can’t handle these kids. The other thing he told me is that older kids–middle and high school–are expecting to be admired by their peers for being abusive, cruel, divisive and belligerent. Given the political climate and behavior of many adults in our society, could one really pretend to be surprised by either of these findings?

Coincidentally I’ve been reading Sasha Abramsky’s new book Chaos Comes Calling about two West Coast communities–Shasta County in California and the town of Sequim (pronounced “Squim”) on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula. Abramsky examines what happened in these communities in the wake of the Trump presidency, after 2020, and through the Covid pandemic, until the end of 2023. He documents the decline of civil discourse in local governments, school committees, and libraries as alt-right and far-right factions attack and subvert communal functions. Where once civic procedures were democratic and respectful, they are now mean and disdainful–often leading to death threats against health officials who encouraged widespread vaccination and mask wearing. 

Town governments and schools were subverted and taken over by people who had no respect for either. Attempts to solve social issues about housing and zoning were torpedoed by anger and conspiracy theory. Decent people dedicated to community service were hounded out of their jobs. Some had to move away. Compassion was overcome by self-satisfied nastiness. Charisma was the sole property of bullies.

Abramsky shows how replacing politeness and common cause with venom and menace can quickly work its way into the fabric of a community and make it unravel, making civil society impossible, assuming your goal is people of different opinions working together for the common good. He also shows that just as this climate of purposeful antagonism reflects the behavior of our dysfunctional national leaders, it also serves as a model for the kind of children’s behavior I was being told about in Washington County, Maine. 

Abramsky’s book does not necessarily prophecy terminal civic breakdown. He shows  that, at least in Sequim, decent, liberal-minded citizens of varying politics can organize  to recover their community from the alt-right and restore inclusive and responsible procedures for going forward and practicing good governance. Shasta County proves to be a harder nut. Attempts there to regain civic equanimity falter. The power of animosity, conspiracy theory and fake news prove nearly intractable.

Abramsky’s excellent book is an object lesson and a warning. Civil society can be abruptly undermined and broken down by people determined to do so for their own ends. The price paid by decent individuals can be considerable. Social trust can be victimized, easily disabling our ability to work together in a time when our problems are urgent and demand cooperation. When chaos comes calling, it doesn’t knock on the door; it knocks it down. A culture can be polluted by animosity and cruelty as a river, by mercury and dioxin–with equally dire consequences.

Reading Sasha Abramsky’s book, I realized that no matter how we claim to interpret the American values of freedom, justice, equality and rights, if we don’t advocate for them with the virtues of honesty, compassion, courage, patience, kindness, and love, we transform ourselves into a most toxic species.