Rural California county’s fury over invasion of ‘radical liberal city folk who leave feces in the forest’

Residents of a rural California town say they have been driven apart by an influx of “radical liberal urbanites” to their neighborhoods.

Inyo County, a community of 19,000 people straddling the Eastern Sierra-Nevada state line, has traditionally been a Republican stronghold in the blue-leaning state of California.

But while it hasn’t backed a Democrat for president since 1964, a flood of city residents who fled to the suburbs during the pandemic has radically changed politics — allowing Joe Biden to win in 2020 by just 14 votes.

Now, with just three weeks until the election, local residents told the LA Times that the rise of Democrats in their community has pushed them to a breaking point.

Even one of the new Liberal residents, Fran Hunt, 65, told the paper: “We may be more blue – or more purple – but we are more divided.”

Fran Hunt, 65, a liberal woman who moved to Inyo County in recent years, says her community “may be more blue — or more purple — but we’re more divided.”

Hunt spoke to the outlet in front of an avid Trump supporter, Lynette McIntosh, who has lived in Inyo County for more than five decades, as Hunt moved in 2014.

Their disagreements made for a striking comparison of how divided Americans find themselves in the final stages before the presidential election, with Inyo County serving as a kind of bellwether for the electorate given the 2020 results.

Hunt explained why she wouldn’t vote for Trump in the former Republican Party stronghold, saying she believes the former president is “threatening a dictatorship.”

‘He threatens to prosecute his opponents. Mass deportations. He threatens chaos in a country full of weapons. Where does my worry list end?’ she said.

McIntosh, on the other hand, denounced newer, liberal residents like McIntosh for destroying the traditional city where she had lived for decades.

“We’re a real conservative community, but we’ve had a whole barrage of left-wing people come in – I mean, radicals – radicals!” she said.

In fact, as noted by the LA Times, the wave of new liberal residents led to “so much trash and feces in the woods” that locals were forced to put up signs urging proper camping etiquette.

Lynette McIntosh, an ardent Trump supporter who has lived in Inyo County for five decades, said her community saw a “whole barrage of left-wingers coming in – I mean, radicals – radicals!”

Donald Trump won Inyo County by 13 points in 2016, but lost it by just 14 votes in 2020 due to the demographic shifts of the area’s voters

She said she believes Trump was “called by God” to lead the country, and argued that Inyo County could serve as a warning to other conservative regions in the country.

She blamed progressive groups for pushing and dividing people into small communities, infiltrating city councils and school boards while convincing locals to vote against Trump.

As an example of how the pandemic’s demographic changes could impact the upcoming election, Inyo County is making the point.

Trump won the region by 13 percentage points in 2016, but a wave of liberals in the community led to Biden’s razor-thin victory four years later.

And when Trump won in 2016, he cruised to victory thanks to a 10 percent lead over registered voters who were Republican. In 2020, Republicans only had a four percent registration advantage.

David Blacker, chairman of the Inyo County Republican Central Committee, told the LA Times that local Trump supporters were stunned by their 2020 election results.

He said conservatives have been “lulled into a false sense of security” given their historic voting record, but argued that the unpopular Biden-Harris policy – cited for a recent dip in Harris’ polling – will give the advantage back to Trump.

“All the people I talk to now say they would rather have mean tweets and a vibrant economy than continue the way we are,” he said.

David Blacker (right), chairman of the Inyo County Republican Central Committee, said he is confident the county will turn to Republicans again because he now often sees people who “would rather have mean tweets and a vibrant economy then have to continue the way we’ we go’

Similarly, Emily Lanphear, vice chair of the local Republican Central Committee, said she was surprised by how many young voters interacted with her when she had a Republican booth at the county fair last month.

“They think (Trump) is such a bad guy,” she added.

However, Lanphear emphasized how demographic shifts have continued to tear her community apart, saying many Trump supporters are afraid to display MAGA flags to avoid fighting with their neighbors.

She said that when the liberal influx hit her city, “all of a sudden we’re seeing women’s rights protests, anti-Trump protests, pro-immigrant protests with open borders.

“The locals say, ‘What’s going on?’ That creates division.’

Kim Nalder, director of the Project for an Informed Electorate at Sacramento State, told the LA Times that she hopes the controversial politics that have gripped her city will recover after the election.

“Our politics are so divided right now, but I have a glimmer of hope that exposure to each other as people will break through that at some point,” she told the newspaper.

“I think the best chance for this kind of future healing is in small towns where it’s impossible to avoid people from the other side.”