{"id":9876,"date":"2020-05-17T07:55:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-17T14:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=9876"},"modified":"2020-05-19T04:05:57","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T11:05:57","slug":"a-coronavirus-turf-war-in-klickitat-county-the-new-yorker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=9876","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;A Coronavirus Turf War in Klickitat County&#8221;, The New Yorker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"byline__preamble\">By <\/span><span class=\"byline__name\">Charles Bethe<span class=\"link__last-letter-spacing\">a, May 17, 2020<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>A handful of sheriffs in Washington State have said they won\u2019t enforce the governor\u2019s shutdown orders. But who are the state\u2019s rural residents actually listening to?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"lede-background\">\n<header class=\"content-header content-header--align-center content-header--media-fullbleed content-header--position-above article__content-header content-header__caption-style--span-content-well content-header--publish-date-bottom\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;ContentHeader&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<div class=\"content-header__container content-header__container-theme-standard\">\n<div class=\"lead-asset lead-asset--landscape content-header__lead-asset lead-asset--width-fullbleed\">\n<figure class=\"lead-asset__content\">\n<div class=\"lead-asset__content__media lead-asset__content__photo\"><span class=\"responsive-asset lead-asset__media\"><picture class=\"lead-asset__media responsive-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__image\" src=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebafee2e1c76e3f6a417886\/master\/w_2560%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Primary.jpg\" alt=\"The upper stretches of the White Salmon River on the western edge of Klickitat County.\" \/><\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"lead-asset__content-full-width\">\n<figure class=\"lead-asset__content-caption-credit\"><figcaption class=\"caption lead-asset__caption caption-shade--light\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;Caption&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><span class=\"caption__text\">The upper stretches of the White Salmon River, on the western edge of Klickitat County.<\/span><span class=\"caption__credit\">Photographs by Michael Hanson for The New Yorker<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"persistent-aside persistent-aside--align-left-lead-asset\">\n<div class=\"sticky-box article__social-share\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content-background content-padding-top-large\" data-attribute-verso-pattern=\"article-body\">\n<div class=\"\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;ChunkedArticleContent&quot;}\" data-in-view=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;ChunkedArticleContent&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<div class=\"article__chunks article__chunks--hr-style-thin\">\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body\">\n<p class=\"has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading\">Klickitat County, in south-central Washington, along the border with Oregon, got its first confirmed case of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/tag\/coronavirus\">coronavirus<\/a> on March 14th. The seriousness of the virus was still sinking in for many Americans; the N.B.A. had suspended its season just three days before, and few schools had been closed at that point. But Washington State had seen the virus <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2020\/05\/04\/seattles-leaders-let-scientists-take-the-lead-new-yorks-did-not\">sooner than most<\/a>: the first U.S. case was diagnosed in suburban Seattle, in late January, and the first U.S. death occurred there, too, on February 29th. Klickitat, which is roughly the size of Rhode Island and home to around twenty thousand people, is a couple hundred miles southeast of Seattle. For many of its residents, <em class=\"small\">covid<\/em>-19 still seemed far away, and possibly of questionable authenticity. \u201cIn the beginning, a lot of people weren\u2019t taking the virus seriously here,\u201d Merrit Monnat, who runs a farm with her husband in the county seat of Goldendale, population three thousand, told me recently. \u201cI heard people say it\u2019s a conspiracy theory.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"body body__grid-container\">\n<div class=\"callout callout--feature-medium callout--has-top-border callout--feature-medium-narrow callout--content-type--asset-embed callout--content-type--image\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;GenericCallout&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<figure class=\"asset-embed\">\n<div class=\"asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"responsive-asset asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__image\" src=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0f53fb47a95f08dba63f\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-6.jpg\" sizes=\"100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0f53fb47a95f08dba63f\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-6.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0f53fb47a95f08dba63f\/master\/w_1280%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-6.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0f53fb47a95f08dba63f\/master\/w_1024%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-6.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0f53fb47a95f08dba63f\/master\/w_768%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-6.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0f53fb47a95f08dba63f\/master\/w_640%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-6.jpg 640w\" alt=\"A sheep farm in the county seat of Goldendale.\" \/><\/picture><\/span><\/div><figcaption class=\"caption asset-embed__caption caption-shade--light\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;Caption&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><span class=\"caption__text\">A sheep farm in the county seat of Goldendale.<\/span><span class=\"caption__credit\">Michael Hanson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body\">\n<p>The sheriff of Klickitat County is a man named Bob Songer. Monnat attributed some of the local attitude to him. (She also blamed Fox News.) \u201cHe\u2019s supported a lot of Bundy-esque behavior over the years,\u201d she said, referring to the ranching family who had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/why-the-bundys-and-their-heavily-armed-supporters-keep-getting-away-with-it\">standoffs<\/a> with the federal government in 2014 and 2016. The Bundys have close ties to a group that Songer belongs to: the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, or C.S.P.O.A, which endorses the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2018\/04\/30\/the-renegade-sheriffs\">legally dubious view<\/a> that a sheriff has the final say on the law in his county. Last year, Songer <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2019\/02\/21\/696400737\/when-sheriffs-wont-enforce-the-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2019\/02\/21\/696400737\/when-sheriffs-wont-enforce-the-law&quot;}\">refused to enforce<\/a> a state law that tightened background checks for gun purchases and raised Washington\u2019s minimum age for purchasing semi-automatic weapons. He later told <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/gyaew4\/this-washington-sheriff-is-refusing-to-enforce-his-states-new-gun-control-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/gyaew4\/this-washington-sheriff-is-refusing-to-enforce-his-states-new-gun-control-law&quot;}\">Vice News<\/a> that he only believed in enforcing \u201clegal laws.\u201d He <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=655049781576209\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=655049781576209&quot;}\">told Alex Jones<\/a> the same thing, adding, \u201cGod, guns, and guts is what made America free.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For weeks, as Washington\u2019s case count rose and the death toll began to mount, Songer did not publicly comment on the coronavirus. Then, two days after Klickitat\u2019s first case appeared, he posted a message on the <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Klickitat-County-Sheriffs-Office-492259454148838\/?__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&amp;eid=ARCw4K0lhivywqX6mqJKx-YGZ0lGU0VN6t0u3mROY8xSFAAkUsW_c2icQ5QIOIvA5gVe8VwPn9XUO9wc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Klickitat-County-Sheriffs-Office-492259454148838\/?__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&amp;eid=ARCw4K0lhivywqX6mqJKx-YGZ0lGU0VN6t0u3mROY8xSFAAkUsW_c2icQ5QIOIvA5gVe8VwPn9XUO9wc&quot;}\">Facebook page<\/a> of the sheriff\u2019s office. The statement outlined \u201csome procedures to better protect the citizens of Klickitat County.\u201d Part of a public building in White Salmon, the county\u2019s second-largest city, would be closed. Also, citizens who wished to apply for concealed-pistol licenses would have to wait until fingerprinting was safe again; prisoners at the county jail would no longer be allowed visitors or donations; the jail\u2019s volunteer programs would cease. These were modest steps, under the circumstances. Twelve days later, a <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.goldendalesentinel.com\/story\/2020\/03\/25\/covid-19\/klickitat-county-resident-dies-in-first-covid-19-county-fatality\/12942.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.goldendalesentinel.com\/story\/2020\/03\/25\/covid-19\/klickitat-county-resident-dies-in-first-covid-19-county-fatality\/12942.html&quot;}\">Klickitat resident<\/a> died of the virus, and, two days after that, Songer posted a video on the Facebook page. \u201cI need our citizens to stay in their home for the next few weeks,\u201d he said, standing in his kitchen, and echoing statewide recommendations that had been in place, by then, for some time. Exceptions would be made for grocery runs and medical visits. If necessary, deputies would explain to violators that they \u201cmay be subject to criminal charges.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"consumer-marketing-unit consumer-marketing-unit--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit--no-failsafe\">\n<div class=\"consumer-marketing-unit__slot consumer-marketing-unit__slot--article-mid-content consumer-marketing-unit__slot--in-content\">\n<p>\u201cIt may have come a little late, but the sheriff deserves credit for that video,\u201d Marla Keethler, the mayor of White Salmon, told me recently. A lot of people in the county \u201clisten to him and respect him,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cHis messaging on the virus matters.\u201d Keethler noted that a local newspaper, the White Salmon <em>Enterprise<\/em>, had recently been folded into another paper serving several other communities, including two much larger ones on the Oregon side, and the resulting outlet devotes little coverage to Klickitat. That means one fewer voice of authority in the region, and less competition with whatever Songer says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"body body__grid-container\">\n<div class=\"callout callout--feature-medium callout--has-top-border callout--feature-medium-narrow callout--content-type--group-callout callout--content-type--callout:group-2\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;GenericCallout&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<div class=\"callout callout--group callout--group-2\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;GroupCallout&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<figure class=\"asset-embed callout--group-item callout--group-item-1\">\n<div class=\"asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"responsive-asset asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__image\" src=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb09ba176132459c096e87\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-1.jpg\" sizes=\"100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb09ba176132459c096e87\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-1.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb09ba176132459c096e87\/master\/w_1280%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-1.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb09ba176132459c096e87\/master\/w_1024%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-1.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb09ba176132459c096e87\/master\/w_768%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb09ba176132459c096e87\/master\/w_640%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-1.jpg 640w\" alt=\"Bob Songer the sheriff of Klickitat County believes that the Washington State government has overstepped its authority...\" \/><\/picture><\/span><\/div><figcaption class=\"caption asset-embed__caption caption-shade--light\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;Caption&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><span class=\"caption__text\">Bob Songer, the sheriff of Klickitat County, believes that the Washington State government has overstepped its authority in response to the coronavirus.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"asset-embed callout--group-item callout--group-item-2\">\n<div class=\"asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"responsive-asset asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__image\" src=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0a60f34525bcbfe9bfcf\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-3.jpg\" sizes=\"100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0a60f34525bcbfe9bfcf\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-3.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0a60f34525bcbfe9bfcf\/master\/w_1280%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-3.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0a60f34525bcbfe9bfcf\/master\/w_1024%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-3.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0a60f34525bcbfe9bfcf\/master\/w_768%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-3.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0a60f34525bcbfe9bfcf\/master\/w_640%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-3.jpg 640w\" alt=\"Marla Keethler the mayor of White Salmon worries that the states efforts to stem the spread of the coronavirus are being...\" \/><\/picture><\/span><\/div><figcaption class=\"caption asset-embed__caption caption-shade--light\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;Caption&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><span class=\"caption__text\">Marla Keethler, the mayor of White Salmon, worries that the state\u2019s efforts to stem the spread of the coronavirus are being undermined.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body\">\n<p>Getting the word out about things can be a challenge in rural areas. I spoke with Jessica Urbach, who was serving as the public-information officer for the Klickitat County\u2019s Emergency Operations Center. It\u2019s a volunteer position, and Urbach was filling in for someone who had recently left the job. She told me that Klickitat had delivered informational coronavirus inserts with utility bills and had run P.S.A.s on the radio, on Facebook, and in print media. For \u201cthe really rural outlying communities,\u201d she said, \u201cthe ones that are really small and rely on word-of-mouth,\u201d the center had e-mailed information to points of contact who could post it on a board in a church, for instance, where people might read it. \u201cThat can be very effective,\u201d she said. Songer has more than a hundred citizen deputies\u2014the Klickitat County Sheriff Posse Patrol\u2014who are among the points of contact the center relied on. Shortly after I spoke with Urbach, in mid-May, she left the position, for personal reasons, and was replaced by someone else.<\/p>\n<p>Residents of Goldendale will tell you that White Salmon, which sits just across the Columbia River from the popular vacation town of Hood River, Oregon, is \u201cthe liberal reservation\u201d in Klickitat County, the kind of place where people are more likely to listen to Washington\u2019s governor, Jay Inslee, a Democrat, who issued a stay-at-home order <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2020\/05\/04\/seattles-leaders-let-scientists-take-the-lead-new-yorks-did-not\">in late March<\/a>. In this respect, White Salmon is like much of the rest of Washington: seventy-six per cent of respondents to a recent <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscut.com\/sites\/default\/files\/files\/crosscut_elwaypoll.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/crosscut.com\/sites\/default\/files\/files\/crosscut_elwaypoll.pdf&quot;}\">poll<\/a> said that the state\u2019s restrictions have helped curb the spread of the virus, and sixty-one per cent said they worried more about ending the restrictions too soon than too late. But White Salmon is also, in this respect, less like the rest of Klickitat County.<\/p>\n<p>I spoke to Keethler, the White Salmon mayor, in late April. It had been an eventful week. On April 15th, a crowd in Michigan protested Governor Gretchen Whitmer\u2019s <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.metrotimes.com\/news-hits\/archives\/2020\/04\/15\/people-protest-whitmers-stay-at-home-order-by-creating-traffic-gridlock-not-adhering-to-social-distancing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.metrotimes.com\/news-hits\/archives\/2020\/04\/15\/people-protest-whitmers-stay-at-home-order-by-creating-traffic-gridlock-not-adhering-to-social-distancing&quot;}\">stay-at-home order<\/a>, and four Michigan sheriffs released a joint statement saying that they would not enforce it. Four days later, the founder of the C.S.P.O.A., a former sheriff named Richard Mack, sent Songer an e-mail dismissing <em class=\"small\">covid<\/em>-19 as a \u201cPanicdemic.\u201d (Mack told me that the virus is \u201ca real threat and a real concern, but my biggest concern that actually scares me to death is the flippant and arrogant attitude that governors and mayors and other politicians have used to shut down freedom, liberty, the economy.\u201d He also said he\u2019d seen encouraging reports about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/daily-comment\/trumps-firing-of-a-top-infectious-disease-expert-endangers-us-all\">hydroxychloroquine<\/a>, and that Songer, whom he\u2019s met a few times, is \u201ca real strong and humble man.\u201d) Songer forwarded the message to other Washington State sheriffs, and also to his staff and to county officials. Mack was \u201cabsolutely CORRECT in regards to his position that Sheriff\u2019s and Peace Officers need to follow their oath of office and support the U.S. Constitution,\u201d he wrote, in a message of his own. He added, \u201cNo Governor\u2019s proclamations or orders can override your liberties without violating your Constitutional Rights even during a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"external-link-embed external-link-embed--inline\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;ExternalLinkEmbed&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<div class=\"external-link-embed__text external-link-embed__text--col-size-large\">\n<p class=\"external-link-embed__hed\"><em>The New Yorker\u2019s<\/em> coronavirus news coverage and analysis are free for all readers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>That same day, a couple thousand people held a protest at the Washington State capitol, carrying signs with slogans like \u201cGive Me Liberty or Give Me Covid 19!\u201d Two Washington sheriffs denounced the state\u2019s stay-at-home order a couple of days later. Inslee then held a <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/seattle-news\/politics\/insleesplan-for-washingtons-economic-recovery-from-coronavirus-outbreak-includes-massive-testing-resources-for-mental-health\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/seattle-news\/politics\/insleesplan-for-washingtons-economic-recovery-from-coronavirus-outbreak-includes-massive-testing-resources-for-mental-health\/&quot;}\">press briefing<\/a> in which he announced an extension of the order and described the first steps of a cautious, phased reopening. \u201cPeople are entitled to their opinions,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they\u2019re not entitled to be the ultimate decider about the Constitution. We have a process to answer questions about that\u2014it\u2019s the judicial system.\u201d That night, a <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thenewstribune.com\/news\/coronavirus\/article242218586.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.thenewstribune.com\/news\/coronavirus\/article242218586.html&quot;}\">man in Snohomish County<\/a>, where one of the rogue sheriffs presides, left a message with the governor\u2019s office. \u201cYou\u2019re dead, Inslee, and any of your workers, employees, and their accomplices,\u201d he said. According to a State Patrol spokesman, the man was \u201cupset with the governor for violating people\u2019s constitutional rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was unsettling,\u201d David Postman, Inslee\u2019s chief of staff, told me recently, referring to this stretch. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you, I was very alarmed. People were trying to outdo each other.\u201d Meanwhile, the Facebook page for the Klickitat County sheriff\u2019s office was quiet. Merrit Monnat, the farmer in Goldendale, told me that, after Songer\u2019s initial messages, people took the virus more seriously in the area, though maybe not seriously enough. \u201cYou still go to the grocery store and most people aren\u2019t wearing masks,\u201d she said. Keethler worried that the work that the state had done in March was at risk of coming undone. \u201cWe\u2019re entering into a period where some of our efforts are now being undermined,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body\">\n<p class=\"has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading\">The day after Inslee\u2019s press briefing, I went to see Songer, in Goldendale. As you drive east up the Columbia River gorge, the green of the lower Cascades gives way to yellow, then to brown. Trees disappear. The central and eastern side of Klickitat County has been farming and ranching land for a hundred and fifty years. White turbines loom in the hills above the valley: the county now produces more wind power than any other county in Washington. For a long time, there was a lumber mill in Goldendale, and more recently there was an aluminum plant. Both those industries are gone. The city\u2019s largest employer is a waste-removal company: one of the biggest landfills in the country sits on the eastern edge of Klickitat, near the town of Roosevelt.<\/p>\n<p>Songer\u2019s citizen deputies include Ray Willis, a seventy-nine-year-old cattle and hay rancher, whom I spoke to outside his home. He was standing, unmasked, next to his pickup truck, which bore a decal signalling his membership in the Klickitat County Sheriff Posse Patrol. \u201cI listen to Songer before I listen to the governor,\u201d Willis told me. \u201cThat\u2019s for dang sure.\u201d He added, \u201cBob Songer\u2019s got a pretty good head on his shoulders. He thinks about stuff. I\u2019m not sure about our governor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That opinion was echoed by Keith Kreps, a fifth-generation cattle rancher, who spoke to me inside one of his family\u2019s large, old barns north of White Salmon. \u201cIt\u2019s like with the guns last year,\u201d Kreps said. \u201cOur sheriff is usually right.\u201d For ranchers like Willis and Kreps, who can go days or weeks without venturing into town, a virus that is often transmitted in large gatherings does not seem all that personally threatening. Kreps operates on forty-four thousand acres. He was worried about the price of beef, which had plummeted, he said, when meat-packing plants began closing, and then rebounded a bit when some <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2020\/05\/06\/meat-shortage-plant-reopen-workers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/fortune.com\/2020\/05\/06\/meat-shortage-plant-reopen-workers\/&quot;}\">came back<\/a> online. Kreps was afraid that, with the country entering a recession, and the market for beef falling, thieves would come to shoot his cattle, then sell it cheaply in neighboring communities. He said it had happened before, in the seventies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"body body__grid-container\">\n<div class=\"callout callout--feature-medium callout--has-top-border callout--feature-medium-narrow callout--content-type--group-callout callout--content-type--callout:group-2\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;GenericCallout&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<div class=\"callout callout--group callout--group-2\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;GroupCallout&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<figure class=\"asset-embed callout--group-item callout--group-item-1\">\n<div class=\"asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"responsive-asset asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__image\" src=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7e48ae94390d8ebc5b\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-4.jpg\" sizes=\"100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7e48ae94390d8ebc5b\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-4.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7e48ae94390d8ebc5b\/master\/w_1280%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-4.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7e48ae94390d8ebc5b\/master\/w_1024%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-4.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7e48ae94390d8ebc5b\/master\/w_768%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-4.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7e48ae94390d8ebc5b\/master\/w_640%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-4.jpg 640w\" alt=\"Antlers hang over the gate at Kreps Ranch.\" \/><\/picture><\/span><\/div><figcaption class=\"caption asset-embed__caption caption-shade--light\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;Caption&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><span class=\"caption__text\">Antlers hang over the gate at Kreps Ranch.<\/span><span class=\"caption__credit\">Michael Hanson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"asset-embed callout--group-item callout--group-item-2\">\n<div class=\"asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"responsive-asset asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__image\" src=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7efb47a95f08dba63d\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-5.jpg\" sizes=\"100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7efb47a95f08dba63d\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-5.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7efb47a95f08dba63d\/master\/w_1280%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-5.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7efb47a95f08dba63d\/master\/w_1024%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-5.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7efb47a95f08dba63d\/master\/w_768%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-5.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb0c7efb47a95f08dba63d\/master\/w_640%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-5.jpg 640w\" alt=\"An antique paperweight on Keith Krepss desk at his cattle ranch.\" \/><\/picture><\/span><\/div><figcaption class=\"caption asset-embed__caption caption-shade--light\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;Caption&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><span class=\"caption__text\">An antique paperweight on Keith Kreps\u2019s desk at his cattle ranch.<\/span><span class=\"caption__credit\">Michael Hanson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body\">\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s good that we live where we do,\u201d Kreps told me, \u201cbecause we are away from where you have to do all that social distancing.\u201d Just then, a rare visitor pulled up: his daughter-in-law, who had come to say hello. Like Kreps, she was not wearing a mask. After they spoke, Kreps returned to his worries about the commodity business. \u201cThey shut down all these packing plants, and that\u2019s where it\u2019s hurting us big time, all across the country,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cWe need to get these guys back to work. Because if you have fat cattle to be your best prime rib, and they keep backing up, well, then they get fatter. Bigger costs more. We got to get those packing plants up, even if we got to go run around the clock.\u201d Kreps wasn\u2019t oblivious to the danger of meat-packing plants right now, he said. Along with nursing homes and prisons, meat-packing plants have emerged as one of the major sites of coronavirus outbreaks in the U.S. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get safe in the workplace,\u201d Kreps told me. \u201cI\u2019ve heard all the horror stories about bosses saying you\u2019ve got to come to work during the pandemic or you\u2019re fired or whatever.\u201d He added, \u201cThere\u2019s only one way to get this to stop. We\u2019ve got to develop a vaccine. That\u2019s No. 1. But it\u2019s going to take a long time. I\u2019m not a scientist, but I know that.\u201d On my way out, he offered his hand.<\/p>\n<p>By the time I spoke to Kreps, Klickitat had had three confirmed coronavirus deaths, and just nineteen confirmed cases\u2014though only \u201cabout four hundred\u201d people in the county had been tested, Kristi Ridgeway, a clinical-division manager with the Klickitat County Health Department, told me. Most of the county\u2019s cases have come in the central zone, which includes Goldendale. \u201cSeveral of them, we were able to connect the dots\u2014they gave it to each other,\u201d Ridgeway said. \u201cThere was a gathering of folks\u2014I can\u2019t tell you more than that. Can\u2019t tell you the town. But it was in mid-March, around when the governor was discussing that we need to limit socializing in groups.\u201d Although Washington\u2019s stay-at-home order was statewide, reopening is happening on a county-by-county basis\u2014larger counties will reopen when they are seeing a declining number of cases, and smaller counties will reopen after they\u2019ve gone three weeks with no new cases. All of this, of course, depends on widespread testing. Ridgeway said that Klickitat had the capacity for such testing\u2014\u201cup to eight or nine thousand, if we had to, in our hospitals,\u201d she said. The county has two hospitals\u2014a community hospital in Goldendale and a private hospital in White Salmon\u2014both of which are conducting tests; hospital groups and clinics have volunteered to send mobile testing groups to the county\u2019s harder-to-reach populations, but this has not happened yet. \u201cUltimately,\u201d Ridgeway said, \u201cit\u2019s up to people to decide if they want to be\u201d tested, \u201calong with medical providers. Sometimes people with symptoms don\u2019t want to be tested.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I arrived at Sheriff Songer\u2019s place late in the morning, as rain clouds gathered. He suggested we speak in his garage, where we settled in among filing boxes, ammunition safes, and old campaign signs. Songer is notorious for plastering warning signs around the county, and I\u2019d seen one on the way there: \u201c<em class=\"small\">warning from sheriff bob songer: if you are selling or using illegal drugs you better move out of klickitat county or get handcuffed and go to jail!<\/em>\u201d In the garage, he also had a large sign touting Loren Culp, the chief of police in Republic, Washington, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, and who has called Inslee\u2019s stay-at-home order \u201cdraconian\u201d and \u201cunconstitutional.\u201d (The C.S.P.O.A. named Culp \u201cpolice chief of the decade\u201d last year. He trails Inslee in polls by large margins.)<\/p>\n<p>Songer is in his seventies, and has close-cropped gray hair. He wore his uniform, along with rimless glasses. He also had a black face mask, which he mostly held in his hands or kept on his chin as we talked. At one point, one of his phones rang, and I noticed that the ringtone was the theme song from \u201c<a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/06\/18\/opinion\/cops-podcast-investigation-abuse.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/06\/18\/opinion\/cops-podcast-investigation-abuse.html&quot;}\">Cops<\/a>.\u201d In conversation, Songer was wry and amiable; he said that I might be surprised to learn that he was a big supporter of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/tag\/donald-trump\">President Trump<\/a>, and flashed a grin. \u201cHe wants to get people back to work,\u201d he said, \u201csame as I do.\u201d Songer believes that China is responsible for the virus. \u201cI believe what I\u2019m hearing, that the virus started in China, to make our economy collapse because of it,\u201d he said. He added, \u201cThey won without firing a shot.\u201d Did he think China created the virus as a weapon? \u201cI would not be surprised,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mostly, though, Songer wanted to talk about Inslee\u2014or \u201cKing Inslee,\u201d as he likes to call him. \u201cHe released eleven hundred inmates from the state institutions, from the prisons, just last Friday or whatever it was,\u201d Songer said. \u201cHow bizarre is that?\u201d In Songer\u2019s view, it was better to be in prison, where you can \u201cquarantine in a cell,\u201d than it was to be \u201ckicked out into our communities.\u201d (Some of the country\u2019s worst outbreaks have been in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/podcast\/political-scene\/the-pandemic-is-wreaking-havoc-in-americas-prisons-and-jails\">jails and prisons<\/a>, where soap and other supplies are often limited and social distancing can be impossible. At the time we spoke, only around <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/q13fox.com\/2020\/04\/22\/more-than-300-inmates-released-from-washington-prisons-due-to-covid-19-concerns\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/q13fox.com\/2020\/04\/22\/more-than-300-inmates-released-from-washington-prisons-due-to-covid-19-concerns\/&quot;}\">three hundred<\/a> Washington State inmates had been released, though there were plans to release more.) Songer was adamant that Inslee had overstepped his authority. \u201cThe Constitution is the law of the land, not some directive put out by the governor that flies in the face of the Constitution,\u201d he said. I mentioned the comment in his Facebook video about violators of the stay-at-home order possibly facing criminal charges. \u201cAt no time ever have I ever taken a position that we would be citing or arresting people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body\">\n<p>\u201cThe bottom line is, we got to get back to work,\u201d Songer told me. \u201cThere\u2019s a risk in doing it. Absolutely. Hell, there\u2019s a risk every time I jump in a patrol car answering domestic-violence calls. We can\u2019t run willy-nilly scared all the time. There\u2019s a certain amount of risk, but, if we don\u2019t get back to work, our economy is going to collapse. And then they think that virus was bad? You get people out of jobs, out of food\u2014and you\u2019re gonna have some real chaos.<\/p>\n<div class=\"cne-interlude-embed\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;d&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><\/div>\n<p>Monnat, the farmer I\u2019d spoken to, was \u201cdoing O.K.,\u201d business-wise, though demand for her high-end lamb, from restaurants in Seattle and elsewhere, had gone down. Kreps foresaw trouble ahead but was not in dire straits. \u201cIt\u2019s the most conflicted town I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Lou Marzeles, the editor and publisher of the Goldendale <em>Sentinel<\/em>, told me. Marzeles freelanced for news outlets around the country, including the New York <em>Post<\/em> and the Washington <em>Times<\/em>, before moving to Klickitat more than a decade ago, so that he and his wife could be near her family. She died of cancer six weeks after the move\u2014\u201cWe didn\u2019t know she was even sick until we got here,\u201d he told me\u2014but Marzeles stuck around. (He\u2019s also written a few spiritual books, most recently a whimsical fable called \u201c<a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Prodigal-Angel-Lou-Marzeles\/dp\/1705638783?ots=1&amp;tag=thneyo0f-20&amp;linkCode=w50\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Prodigal-Angel-Lou-Marzeles\/dp\/1705638783&quot;}\">Prodigal Angel<\/a>.\u201d) There are wealthy and accomplished residents in Goldendale, Marzeles noted, including one of the country\u2019s foremost aviation-crash experts and a man who runs a business making tombstones for Hollywood productions. But about a third of the city\u2019s residents have been on government assistance in the recent past. The population skews white and elderly; there are more than a dozen churches in town, most of them Protestant.<\/p>\n<p>Sue Hawkins, a retired computer technician who lives with her husband just north of Goldendale, described herself, on Facebook, as a supporter of Songer; under his Facebook video, she had left a comment, asking, \u201cWhen will we take a stand against Inslee?\u201d I gave her a call. \u201cThe governor has opened some of the Seattle parks and let thousands of Boeing workers go back to work,\u201d she said. \u201cBut here on the east side of the state, we can\u2019t fish, we can\u2019t go camping, or anything else.\u201d When I asked Postman, the governor\u2019s chief of staff, about this, he acknowledged that the governor \u201cwent further than a lot of other states\u201d in prohibiting all outdoor recreation. But, he said, it was one of the first restrictions that the governor eased\u2014on the day I spoke with Hawkins, Washington State announced plans to make hunting and fishing permissible again, one week later. Postman told me that officials in some of the state\u2019s more rural counties had suggested outdoor areas only be open to people who reside in the counties where they\u2019re situated; they didn\u2019t necessarily want visitors from the city filling up their parks. The governor supported that move, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Marzeles, for his part, had doubts about some of the governor\u2019s recommendations. \u201cI don\u2019t wear the mask,\u201d he told me. \u201cBut I do observe distancing. I go with how things feel at a given moment.\u201d He\u2019d let his staff of seven decide where to work, and what safety precautions to use; half of them had, like him, returned to the office. \u201cI don\u2019t know enough about the science to have an educated opinion, so I won\u2019t offer one,\u201d he said. \u201cBut, on a personal level, the total shutdown feels a little extreme. If a barbershop wanted to open very carefully, I wouldn\u2019t be opposed to that.\u201d He added, \u201cI\u2019m somewhere in the middle on all this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"body body__grid-container\">\n<div class=\"callout callout--feature-medium callout--has-top-border callout--feature-medium-narrow callout--content-type--asset-embed callout--content-type--image\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;GenericCallout&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<figure class=\"asset-embed\">\n<div class=\"asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"responsive-asset asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__image\" src=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12a70fe2fbfb61a2935c\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-8.jpg\" sizes=\"100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12a70fe2fbfb61a2935c\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-8.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12a70fe2fbfb61a2935c\/master\/w_1280%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-8.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12a70fe2fbfb61a2935c\/master\/w_1024%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-8.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12a70fe2fbfb61a2935c\/master\/w_768%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-8.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12a70fe2fbfb61a2935c\/master\/w_640%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-8.jpg 640w\" alt=\"Warning signs hang on a barn in Klickitat County.\" \/><\/picture><\/span><\/div><figcaption class=\"caption asset-embed__caption caption-shade--light\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;Caption&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><span class=\"caption__text\">Warning signs hang on a barn in Klickitat County.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body\">\n<p class=\"has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading\">There is nowhere in Goldendale to buy a cardamom sticky bun. An hour to the west, though, you can go to the White Salmon Baking Company, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, for socially distant outdoor bake sales. The social distancing may not be perfect. In late April, Main Street in White Salmon was mostly empty, but, at the bakery, a few blocks away, people were queued up half an hour before the place opened, and the six-feet-apart standard was observed only sporadically. \u201cIt\u2019s worth it,\u201d someone said, when I asked about safety. I spotted the retired pro kayaker Tao Berman\u2014like a lot of people there, he wasn\u2019t wearing a mask\u2014who is perhaps the most famous of the city\u2019s twenty-five hundred residents. Formerly known for paddling off of waterfalls, he\u2019s since transitioned to real estate; cottages in White Salmon start at around half a million dollars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading\">Nestled between water and mountains, White Salmon attracts people who want to bike and boat in the foothills of the Cascades along the Columbia River. Timber was once the main industry here, but now it\u2019s tourism and recreation. Among the town\u2019s staple businesses are wineries, breweries, and yoga studios, reflecting the tastes of its second-homers and seasonal sojourners. \u201cI feel safe, for the most part, in this community,\u201d Heather Weisfield, a mask-wearing retired educator in her seventies, told me, as we stood in line for pastries. \u201cBut then I think, if we just loosen all of this up more, all these people from God knows where\u2014I don\u2019t want outsiders coming in here and bringing their diseases.\u201d She added, \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve ever thought like that, which worries me. That\u2019s what you see in the big blockbuster movies: everyone starts circling the wagons, then the guns come out.\u201d She sighed. \u201cBut I know that the east end of our county is a more conservative end. God bless them, but I don\u2019t want them to bring their conservative germs into my community and my family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Weisfield was troubled by Sheriff Songer, she told me. \u201cI feel like Songer represents a radical point of view that exists in our nation as well as our county,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s a dangerous point of view for any kind of coming together. It pits people against each other, instead of following the rules. It\u2019s like seeing\u201d Vice-President Mike \u201cPence out there with no mask\u2014what kind of role model is that?\u201d She added, \u201cI hugged my grandson the other day\u2014I couldn\u2019t help myself. That got me through a few days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy biggest thing, when we talk about opening things up, is we\u2019re putting the most vulnerable at further risk,\u201d Kay Alton, a thirty-eight-year-old behavioral-health specialist in White Salmon, told me. Alton is a program director at CultureSeed, which focusses on outdoor programs for underserved youth. \u201cA lot of the parents of the underserved kids we work with are still on the front lines,\u201d she said. They included grocery workers and hospital cleaners. \u201cUndocumented folks, especially. I think about that a lot.\u201d The nonprofit has recently put together an emergency fund to direct relief to the families of beneficiaries enrolled in their program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body\">\n<p>Ubaldo Hern\u00e1ndez moved to White Salmon in the nineties, from Mexico, and worked, at first, in local orchards and restaurants before becoming an organizer focussed on environmental and social justice. \u201cThe main labor they have is immigrant labor,\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez said, of the farms in the area. \u201cWithout them, they wouldn\u2019t have enough workers.\u201d There are some seasonal migrants, but many of these workers have immigrated to the area, as he did, Hern\u00e1ndez said. In places like White Salmon and Hood River, near I-84, which skirts the Columbia River on the Oregon side, Hern\u00e1ndez said, \u201cThere is a very good relation with locals.\u201d Attitudes toward immigrants are more aggressive when you head into rural parts, he added. He mentioned <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.goldendalesentinel.com\/story\/2019\/07\/03\/news\/gun-rights-advocate-at-rally-this-is-a-spiritual-battle\/11901.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.goldendalesentinel.com\/story\/2019\/07\/03\/news\/gun-rights-advocate-at-rally-this-is-a-spiritual-battle\/11901.html&quot;}\">a rally<\/a> that was held in Goldendale last summer by the far-right group Patriot Prayer, whose events have sometimes attracted white nationalists. Songer was one of the rally\u2019s scheduled speakers.<\/p>\n<p>Klickitat \u201cgets lumped in with conservative, rural southwest Washington counties,\u201d Mayor Keethler told me. \u201cWhite Salmon isn\u2019t that at all.\u201d Keethler, who\u2019s forty, used to be a producer in sports broadcasting. She moved west from New York four years ago and took office in January. We met in her townhouse. She wore a mask and didn\u2019t take it off until we were ten feet apart. She and her husband have a nineteen-month-old child and a baby on the way, and their garage was full of kids\u2019 stuff. \u201cPretty crazy time to have another one,\u201d she said. Days before, her daughter had a hundred-and-four-degree fever. Fortunately, a test for the coronavirus came back negative, and the fever lifted the day I spoke to her. \u201cOtherwise,\u201d she said, \u201cwe obviously wouldn\u2019t have invited you here!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Keethler was beginning to have conversations with other mayors in the county about what to do if disregard for the state\u2019s pandemic protocols continued to increase, whether because of Songer, Trump, or simple impatience. \u201cWe mayors want to open,\u201d she said. \u201cBut not, to quote our sheriff, \u2018willy-nilly.\u2019\u00a0\u201d Betty Barnes, the mayor of Bingen, just to the east of White Salmon, agreed. \u201cI haven\u2019t been lynched yet, but I know some of the guidelines we\u2019re supporting aren\u2019t popular with some people, especially in Goldendale,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd they\u2019re the ones with the biggest outbreak in our county, so that\u2019s not really understandable to me.\u201d Barnes noted that Songer had not taken part in the recent emergency-operation calls with the county commissioners and other mayors. \u201cThat\u2019s concerning,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s where our enforcement comes from.\u201d She wanted local officers to actively discourage protocol breakers. This seemed reasonable to Keethler, too. Ideally, it wouldn\u2019t reach the point of arrests. Washington State\u2019s enforcement guidelines call first for instruction, then a warning, and then a citation. Aggressive police enforcement of social distancing has been carried out unequally in some places, and has arguably helped to fuel a backlash to such rules in some parts of the country. In New York City, <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/05\/07\/nyregion\/nypd-social-distancing-race-coronavirus.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/05\/07\/nyregion\/nypd-social-distancing-race-coronavirus.html&quot;}\">thirty-five<\/a> of the first forty people arrested on social-distancing violations were black.<\/p>\n<p>Christiaan Erasmus, a fifty-two-year-old White Salmon restaurant owner, told me that, when it came to enforcing the safety protocols, \u201cthere\u2019s got to be a happy medium somewhere between a verbal warning and violence. Especially here in the gorge, which is a kind of cocoon.\u201d Erasmus, who\u2019s originally from South Africa, contrasted the average American\u2019s response to the U.S. government\u2019s virus guidelines with the reactions of people in other countries. \u201cIn Europe, everybody is, like, \u2018All right, let\u2019s just do it,\u2019\u00a0\u201d he said. \u201cOver here, it\u2019s being politicized, which is really fucking weird. It\u2019s got nothing to do with what\u2019s smart, which is really, really scary.\u201d On a visit to the town\u2019s hardware store the day before, he\u2019d seen a lot of shoppers without masks. \u201cIt\u2019s just\u2014what do you do?\u201d he said. \u201cIf we\u2019re serious, there should be a penalty to get everybody to conform. If I don\u2019t wear my seat belt, I get a fine.\u201d Erasmus didn\u2019t trust Songer\u2019s views on the matter, or his likely approach. \u201cIf he tells me I\u2019m allowed to open my business, I won\u2019t, because I respect science and statistics and math,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can\u2019t have a patchwork response. It\u2019s like that <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/imgflip.com\/i\/3v9bgq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/imgflip.com\/i\/3v9bgq&quot;}\">meme<\/a> about a pee-pee section in the pool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"body body__grid-container\">\n<div class=\"callout callout--feature-medium callout--has-top-border callout--feature-medium-narrow callout--content-type--asset-embed callout--content-type--image\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;GenericCallout&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<figure class=\"asset-embed\">\n<div class=\"asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"responsive-asset asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__image\" src=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12af320293f9a8c8850c\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-7.jpg\" sizes=\"100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12af320293f9a8c8850c\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-7.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12af320293f9a8c8850c\/master\/w_1280%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-7.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12af320293f9a8c8850c\/master\/w_1024%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-7.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12af320293f9a8c8850c\/master\/w_768%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-7.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.newyorker.com\/photos\/5ebb12af320293f9a8c8850c\/master\/w_640%2Cc_limit\/Bethea-SocialDistancing-Secondary-7.jpg 640w\" alt=\"A sign broadcasts a shop closure in Bingen after the governors stayathome order.\" \/><\/picture><\/span><\/div><figcaption class=\"caption asset-embed__caption caption-shade--light\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;Caption&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\"><span class=\"caption__text\">A sign broadcasts a shop closure in Bingen after the governor\u2019s stay-at-home order.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body\">\n<p class=\"has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading\">The Klickitat County board of commissioners is made up of three Republican men. Since the governor issued the stay-at-home order, in late March, they\u2019ve been holding weekly conference calls, open to the public. Joanna Turner, a forty-six-year-old entrepreneur and advocate at a domestic-violence and sexual-assault resource center in Trout Lake, a half hour north of White Salmon, has been among those listening in. She\u2019s currently running, as a Democrat, to join the board. On the first few calls, she said, there seemed to be general agreement with what the state government was doing. But, on the April 21st call, she told me, \u201cOne of the very first things one of the commissioners said was, \u2018We haven\u2019t seen that many cases of this.\u2019\u00a0\u201d He went on to say, she recalled, \u201c\u00a0\u2018What are you all thinking? It feels like it\u2019s time to get back to work.\u2019\u00a0\u201d Turner wasn\u2019t sure which commissioner had said it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap has-dropcap__lead-standard-heading\">\u201cShe\u2019s correct in what she heard,\u201d Jim Sizemore, the interim chairman of the board, told me, a few weeks later. But, he added, they weren\u2019t going to rush. \u201cAfter a little more discussion,\u201d he went on, \u201cit\u2019s better to be safe than sorry. I\u2019m a personal witness to that now.\u201d Someone in Sizemore\u2019s family, living in another county, had died from the virus, on Mother\u2019s Day, \u201cvery fast,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no way I can come up with an acceptable rate of death that would allow me to try to open anything up. I also don\u2019t have the power to do that.\u201d He said that one other member of the board would \u201clike to see it open up sooner, but we\u2019re all three in agreement to follow the governor\u2019s orders at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Songer put out a press release on May 5th, a day after Inslee\u2019s stay-at-home order was originally set to expire. (\u201cI\u2019ve stated it in the past, but I figured I\u2019d better put it out officially,\u201d he told me.) \u201cGovernor Inslee\u2019s orders pertaining to public gatherings or businesses operating in violation of his orders in my opinion is a violation of our citizens Constitutional Rights under the 1st Amendment, 2nd Amendment, and other Amendments of the US Constitution and Washington State Constitution,\u201d <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/gorgenewscenter.com\/2020\/05\/05\/sheriff-songer-on-public-gatherings-business-operations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/gorgenewscenter.com\/2020\/05\/05\/sheriff-songer-on-public-gatherings-business-operations\/&quot;}\">he wrote<\/a>. \u201cNot allowing citizens to attend church or firearm dealers to conduct business is a violation of the 1st Amendment and the 2nd Amendment but the Governor has no problem allowing Marijuana shops to stay open for business.\u201d The complaint about marijuana shops is one that the sheriff in Snohomish County, Adam Fortney, had made, too, a couple of weeks before: \u201cAre pot shops really essential or did he\u201d\u2014Inslee, that is\u2014\u201callow them to stay in business because of the government taxes received from them?\u201d Fortney added, \u201cIf pot shops are essential, then why aren\u2019t gun shops essential?\u201d (The state classified cannabis dispensaries as \u201cmedical facilities,\u201d which have been permitted to remain open. Fortney, who is now facing a <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/myedmondsnews.com\/2020\/05\/snohomish-county-sheriff-has-to-pay-for-legal-defense-of-recall-petition-county-prosecutor-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/myedmondsnews.com\/2020\/05\/snohomish-county-sheriff-has-to-pay-for-legal-defense-of-recall-petition-county-prosecutor-says\/&quot;}\">recall petition<\/a>, told me that his office was encouraging \u201cvoluntary compliance\u201d in a manner \u201cconsistent with law-enforcement agencies statewide.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body\">\n<p>Two days later, on May 7th, Keethler issued a <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.white-salmon.net\/citycouncil\/page\/city-white-salmon-news-release-protecting-yourself-and-others\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.white-salmon.net\/citycouncil\/page\/city-white-salmon-news-release-protecting-yourself-and-others&quot;}\">press release<\/a> of her own. \u201cAs we enter into a Phased approach to re-opening, the city will continue to follow all of the directives provided by Governor Inslee related to the <em class=\"small\">covid<\/em>-19 pandemic and encourages its citizens and businesses to do the same.\u201d She noted that violators would first be educated about those directives, then warned, and finally issued a citation\u2014by the city\u2019s police force, which, the statement explained, would be enforcing the laws in White Salmon.<\/p>\n<p>When we had first spoken, a couple of weeks before, Keethler had been worried that the \u201cpretty unified coalition\u201d of the early days was fracturing a bit, though she maintained that \u201cthe majority viewpoint is still there.\u201d On Saturday, May 9th, opponents of the stay-at-home order once again gathered at the state capitol, in Olympia. Like the previous protest, this one was organized by Tyler Miller, an engineering technician at the Kitsap Naval Base, near Puget Sound, who serves on the executive board of the state\u2019s Republican Party. I spoke to Miller shortly before the second protest; he had just returned to work, after \u201ca quote-unquote self-quarantine for the past fourteen days because of the last rally.\u201d Apparently, some of his co-workers \u201chad expressed concern over possible risk of exposure,\u201d since he had \u201cbeen in a crowd of people and everything,\u201d he said. \u201cI acquiesced to that for fourteen days. It was silly.\u201d Miller told me that his primary issue was the constitutionality of Inslee\u2019s orders\u2014he had e-mailed the governor repeatedly about the matter, but hadn\u2019t heard back, he said\u2014and he had organized the events himself. (Some protests elsewhere in the country have received support from <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/inside-the-conservative-networks-backing-anti-quarantine-protests\/2020\/04\/22\/da75c81e-83fe-11ea-a3eb-e9fc93160703_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/inside-the-conservative-networks-backing-anti-quarantine-protests\/2020\/04\/22\/da75c81e-83fe-11ea-a3eb-e9fc93160703_story.html&quot;}\">deep-pocketed<\/a> conservative groups.) Miller thought that the second protest would be bigger than the first; with Saturday approaching, he gave me a list of two dozen speakers, nearly all of whom were Republicans who either held local office or were campaigning to do so. (\u201cI want to go,\u201d Songer had told me, \u201cbut my son is coming in from Tennessee, so I\u2019ll be here with him.\u201d) Ultimately, some fifteen hundred people came out, according to official estimates, a smaller crowd than the first. (Miller disputed the number.) At one point during the event, Matthew Shea, a Spokane Valley representative who was sanctioned last year for engaging in <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/seattle-news\/politics\/expulsion-vote-at-the-legislature-unlikely-for-washington-rep-matt-shea-accused-of-domestic-terrorism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/seattle-news\/politics\/expulsion-vote-at-the-legislature-unlikely-for-washington-rep-matt-shea-accused-of-domestic-terrorism\/&quot;}\">domestic terrorism<\/a>, led the crowd in a chant of \u201cFreedom is the cure,\u201d the Seattle <em>Times<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n<p>The Seattle <em>Times<\/em> also <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/seattle-news\/politics\/washington-residents-threatened-after-naming-open-businesses-as-protesters-gather-at-capitol-to-assail-coronavirus-closures\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/seattle-news\/politics\/washington-residents-threatened-after-naming-open-businesses-as-protesters-gather-at-capitol-to-assail-coronavirus-closures\/&quot;}\">reported<\/a> that a handful of far-right Facebook groups had begun sharing the names and personal details of people who had reported potential violators of the stay-at-home order to local officials. (One of these Facebook pages had also promoted Saturday\u2019s protest.) The information, which was likely obtained through public-records requests, had been posted in a public spreadsheet, and had reportedly led to threats of violence and harassment.<\/p>\n<p>Washington was beginning to see an <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.documentcloud.org\/documents\/6885511\/Inslee-Slide-Re-5-8-29.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/assets.documentcloud.org\/documents\/6885511\/Inslee-Slide-Re-5-8-29.pdf&quot;}\">uptick<\/a> in the <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.documentcloud.org\/documents\/6885511\/Inslee-Slide-Re-5-8-29.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/assets.documentcloud.org\/documents\/6885511\/Inslee-Slide-Re-5-8-29.pdf&quot;}\">transmission of the disease<\/a>, after weeks of decline. \u201cWe\u2019re very concerned about gatherings as things open up again,\u201d Kristi Ridgeway, the official at the Klickitat County Health Department, had told me. \u201cEspecially the seasonal workers coming in. We anticipate more cases in the coming weeks.\u201d (According to Hern\u00e1ndez, the organizer, a few hundred migrants, both documented and undocumented, come to the area from Mexico and California to pick cherries, pears, and apples from May through September.) Three more cases had been confirmed in Klickitat since I first spoke with Ridgeway, all in the county\u2019s central zone, setting back any potential reopening of the county another three weeks at least. I called Songer, asking if the new cases concerned him. \u201cYou\u2019re looking at a population of almost twenty-two thousand, and three new cases doesn\u2019t seem high to me,\u201d he said. If the numbers got higher, I asked, might he put out another video urging caution? \u201cI would not change my position as far as refusing to arrest people for not social distancing or opening a business that fell under non-essential,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n<p>Upticks are likely inevitable as reopenings begin. The virus is going to be with us for a while; the question is whether we have the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/how-much-coronavirus-testing-does-the-united-states-need-to-reopen\">technologies<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/science\/medical-dispatch\/amid-the-coronavirus-crisis-a-regimen-for-reentry\">procedures<\/a> in place to contain the new cases that arise, and whether people take the steps necessary to do so. I thought of my conversation with Sue Hawkins, the retired computer technician who lives with her elderly husband. \u201cYou have a ninety-nine-per-cent chance to survive this and live through it,\u201d she\u2019d said. The number didn\u2019t come out of nowhere\u2014at the time we talked, judging from fatalities in the state and confirmed cases, you might have concluded that someone who got it had about a one-in-a-hundred chance of being killed by the disease. But the age curve with coronavirus is steep: the fatality rate for someone in her late fifties, like Hawkins, is probably higher, and for a man in his late seventies, like her husband, it is higher still. And killing you is not the only thing that the coronavirus does; those who survive may suffer permanent damage to their health. There\u2019s also a great deal that we still <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/science\/medical-dispatch\/what-we-dont-know-about-covid-19\">don\u2019t know<\/a>, about the virus\u2019s spread and its effects. But Hawkins was sure that the governor had \u201cgone too far,\u201d she said, and had taken steps that were\u2014as she, Songer, and others insisted\u2014unconstitutional. She and her husband had been going to town once a week for groceries, she said, and they did not wear masks or gloves. \u201cWe\u2019re back to normal,\u201d she told me. \u201cAnd nobody is going to stop us from opening up and getting back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>A Guide to the Coronavirus<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Twenty-four hours at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2020\/05\/04\/twenty-four-hours-at-the-epicenter-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic?itm_content=footer-recirc\">epicenter of the pandemic<\/a>: nearly fifty <em>New Yorker<\/em>writers and photographers fanned out to document life in New York City on April 15th.<\/li>\n<li>Seattle leaders let scientists take the lead in responding to the coronavirus. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2020\/05\/04\/seattles-leaders-let-scientists-take-the-lead-new-yorks-did-not?itm_content=footer-recirc\">New York leaders did not<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Can survivors help <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/can-survivors-of-the-coronavirus-help-cure-the-disease-and-rescue-the-economy?itm_content=footer-recirc\">cure the disease and rescue the economy<\/a>?<\/li>\n<li>What the coronavirus has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2020\/05\/04\/what-the-coronavirus-crisis-reveals-about-american-medicine?itm_content=footer-recirc\">revealed about American medicine<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Can we <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/tech\/annals-of-technology\/can-we-track-covid-19-and-protect-privacy-at-the-same-time?itm_content=footer-recirc\">trace the spread of <em class=\"small\">covid<\/em>-19<\/a> and protect privacy at the same time?<\/li>\n<li>The coronavirus is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/how-long-will-it-take-to-develop-a-coronavirus-vaccine?itm_content=footer-recirc\">likely to spread for more than a year<\/a> before a vaccine is widely available.<\/li>\n<li>How to practice <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/q-and-a\/the-vital-importance-of-isolation?itm_content=footer-recirc\">social distancing<\/a>, from responding to a sick housemate to the pros and cons of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/annals-of-gastronomy\/pick-up-the-damn-phone-and-other-thoughts-on-ordering-restaurant-delivery?itm_content=footer-recirc\">ordering food<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The long crusade of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2020\/04\/20\/how-anthony-fauci-became-americas-doctor?itm_content=footer-recirc\">Dr. Anthony Fauci<\/a>, the infectious-disease expert pinned between Donald Trump and the American people.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/tag\/coronavirus-social-distancing-cultural-recommendations?itm_content=footer-recirc\">What to read, watch, cook, and listen to under quarantine<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content-footer\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;ContentFooter&quot;}\" data-in-view=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;ContentFooter&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"grid grid-margins grid-items-0\">\n<div class=\"contributors contributors--no-bottom-line grid--item\">\n<div class=\"contributor-bio contributor-bio--align-left contributors__contributor-bio\" data-event-boundary=\"click\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;pattern&quot;:&quot;ContributorBio&quot;}\" data-include-experiments=\"true\">\n<div class=\"contributor-bio__responsive-image\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"contributor-bio__content\">\n<div class=\"contributor-bio__bio\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/us-journal\/a-coronavirus-turf-war-in-klickitat-county\"><em>The New Yorker<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Charles Bethea, May 17, 2020 A handful of sheriffs in Washington State have said they won\u2019t enforce the governor\u2019s shutdown orders. But who are the state\u2019s rural residents actually listening to? &nbsp; The upper stretches of the White Salmon River, on the western edge of Klickitat County.Photographs by Michael Hanson for The New Yorker [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9876"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9882,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9876\/revisions\/9882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}