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In one small prairie town, two warring visions of America

A worker polishes a marquee at a theater under renovation in Benson, Minn., Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. It can be easy, looking around Benson, to think it is a land that time forgot. Bartenders often greet customers by name. Many farms and businesses have been owned by the same families for decades: through the droughts of the 1930s; through the thriving years around World War II; to the population decline that began in the 1950s. But plenty has changed. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Al Saunders walks out of his farm's tool shed in Benson, Minn., Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021. "I just can't stomach it anymore," said Saunders, whose family settled on part of his sprawling farm more than a century ago. The editorials in his local newspaper, The Swift County Monitor-News, on farm subsidies and the occasional praise for Democratic politicians leave him fuming. "Trash gets thrown at you so many times and eventually you just give up." (AP Photo/David Goldman) Al Saunders stands beneath a Trump campaign sign in his farm's tool shed in Benson, Minn., Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021. Trump's cries that he loved America resonated in an area where new approaches to teaching U.S. history, with an increased focus on race, were confounding. So in a county where Obama won with 55% of the vote in 2008, Trump won with 64% percent in 2020. "We've seen a shift here in Swift County," said Saunders. "But you won't see that in the newspaper." (AP Photo/David Goldman) Al Saunders stands on his farm in Benson, Minn., Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. "In rural Minnesota we still have a work ethic, and I'll call them Christian values, and that's not reflected in our local newspaper," said Saunders who graduated from Benson High School a couple years after the The Swift County Monitor-News' publisher. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Reed Anfinson, publisher of The Swift County Monitor-News, holds the latest edition as he stands for a portrait at Quinco Press in Lowry, Minn., Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. Anfinson's weekly column is a local lightning rod. He says it's his duty to expose people to new ideas, even unpopular ideas like stricter gun control. The editorial page is, he says "the soul of a newspaper in a way." "I would be a traitor to the cause of journalism, of community newspapers," by giving up on editorials, he said. "I would be cowardly." (AP Photo/David Goldman) Pressmen Matt Chan, left, and Todd Grewe prepare to print the latest edition of The Swift County Monitor-News at Quinco Press in Lowry, Minn., Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. The weekly paper, which has a circulation of roughly 2,000, does cover Swift County intensely, the city council, the county commissioners, the school board and nearly every other gathering of consequence. With declining circulation and ads, the publisher estimates his three little local newspapers are worth at least $1 million less than a decade ago. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Reed Anfinson, publisher of The Swift County Monitor-News, left, is stands for a portrait with his wife and business partner, Shelly, at the paper's office in Benson, Minn., Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021. When it comes to politics, she's not who you'd expect to be married to the man often tagged as Benson's best-known liberal. She's a deeply patriotic, pro-life Republican. She is often torn between support for Reed and worries over subscriber loss. (AP Photo/David Goldman) John Fragodt, sports director for the weekly newspaper, The Swift County Monitor-News, carries copies of the latest edition to be delivered throughout Benson, Minn., Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. Across the U.S., many smaller newspapers, already facing economic decline with the rise of the internet, have cut back or completely stopped running editorials, trying to hold onto conservative readers who increasingly see them as local arms of a fake news universe. (AP Photo/David Goldman) A sign is posted to an office wall in Benson, Minn., Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. While social conservatism has long run deep in Swift County, even the former, longtime Democratic congressman was anti-abortion and pro-gun rights, many say the presidency of Barack Obama marked a change. Gay marriage was legalized and identity politics took hold. Growing calls for transgender rights seemed like an issue from another planet. The sometimes-violent racial justice protests that followed police killings of Black men had some here stocking up on ammunition. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Reed Anfinson, right, who is often tagged as the liberal publisher of the The Swift County Monitor-News, meets up at a bar with John Zosel, from left, Mick Abner and Bill Harrison, part of a weekly gathering made up of mostly Republicans, in Benson, Minn., Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. It can be easy, looking around Benson, to think it is a land that time forgot. Bartenders often greet customers by name. The town’s cafes feel like high school lunchrooms, with people wandering between tables to say hello. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Jason Wolter, rear, prays at the dinner table with his wife, Tracy, from left, daughter, Bella, 17, and son, Zeb, 9, at their home in Benson, Minn., Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. Wolter knows that plenty of people would write him off as just another conspiracy monger. He also worries his conservative opinions color what he believes. "There are times when I've thought: 'Well, what if all my angst over this is misplaced?'" he says. "Maybe everyone else is right?" But he worries more about America: "This is a dark time." (AP Photo/David Goldman) Tracy Wolter cooks dinner in her kitchen as the home of her neighbor, Reed Anfinson, publisher for the weekly newspaper, The Swift County Monitor-News, stands next door in Benson, Minn., Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. In the custom of small-town Minnesota, the Anfinson and Wolter families get along, at least outwardly. They wave when they see each other. When one family is out of town, the other will sometimes watch their home. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Family photos hang on the wall as Jason Wolter puts up Christmas decorations at his home in Benson, Minn., Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. Wolter, whose home library includes everything from Sophocles to "The Grapes of Wrath," is a careful reader, in his own way. He's wary of conservative news sites like Breitbart, believing it shapes its reporting to please conservative readers. Instead, he finds his news farther off the beaten path, like on Gab, a Twitter-like social media platform that has become home to many on America's far right. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Reed Anfinson, publisher of the weekly newspaper, The Swift County Monitor-News, works before office hours in Benson, Minn., Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. Anfinson is not the most popular man in the county. Lots of people disagree with his politics. He deals with the occasional veiled threat. Sometimes, he grudgingly worries about his safety. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Pressman Todd Grewe stacks freshly printed copies of the The Swift County Monitor-News at Quinco Press in Lowry, Minn., Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. Nowhere in the Monitor-News will you find reports that local people are dying because they've been inoculated. "There are no alternative facts," the paper's publisher, Reed Anfinson, says. "There is just the truth." (AP Photo/David Goldman) Jason Wolter right, pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran Church, sits next to his wife, Tracy, at their home in Benson, Minn., Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. Wolter doubts President Joe Biden was legitimately elected and is certain that COVID-19 vaccines kill people. He hasn't seen the death certificates and hasn't contacted health authorities, but he's sure the vaccine deaths occurred: "I just know that I'm doing their funerals." He's also certain that information "will never make it into the newspaper." (AP Photo/David Goldman) Reed Anfinson, publisher of the weekly newspaper, The Swift County Monitor-News, walks by old printing press block letters and past editions at the paper's office in Benson, Minn., Monday, Nov. 29, 2021. Most weeks Anfinson, the publisher, editor, photographer and reporter, writes every story on the paper's front page. While his editorials lean left, he works hard to report the news straight. But in an America of competing visions, some here say he has taken sides. (AP Photo/David Goldman) A customer carries a box of baked goods from a bakery at sunrise in Benson, Minn., Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021. One little town. Three thousand people. Two starkly different realities. It's another measure of how America's divisions don't just play out on cable television. It has seeped into the American fabric, all the way to Benson, where two neighbors, each in his own well-kept, century-old home, can live in different worlds. (AP Photo/David Goldman)