Costco’s application to build the plant kept sailing through the Fremont city council’s approval process. The new site, on farmland just outside the city limits, was annexed into the town, then rezoned from agricultural to commercial, and then declared blighted and substandard, all maneuvers that allowed the town to offer Costco more than $13 million in tax incentives. When objections were raised over condemning productive farmland, the size of the allotted area was stretched to include some abandoned buildings close by. Through it all, people from Fremont gathered, in person and online, in attempts to unify over their opposition to the plant. But deep rifts were soon exposed.

Jerry Hart, one of John Wiegert’s co-petitioners on the anti-immigration ordinance, was a regular, and confrontational, presence on a Facebook group called Fremont City Council Watchdog. One local resident mocked him, writing, “yes, you should be so ‘proud’ of your illegal ordinance, that accomplishes nothing, and made Fremont a laughingstock.... And so many of those you think are illegal are not. They have as much a right to be here as you do. You, sir, are un-American.” Hart replied, “Illegal is not a race. Mexican is not a race. Muslim is not a race. You are stupid and you can’t fix stupid.”

When a Change.org petition was started online, those adding their names attached long signing statements. Between demands for environmental studies, complaints about “corporate greed,” and at least one call to “go vegan,” there were also overtly anti-immigrant comments. A local school-bus driver denounced “all these Hispanics or Japanese whatever kind of people that come in our country that don’t speak a word in English.” Mary Trehearn, a ninth-grade English teacher at Fremont High School, wrote, “The school system is sound. Property values are good. This will change everything. Taxes will skyrocket. Property values will plummet. Crime will increase. Illegal immigrants will pour in.... And who are we talking about bringing in? Muslims, Somalians, and Sudanese! Are we out of our minds????”

After similar statements at small-group community meetings hosted by the Greater Fremont Development Council, Walt Shafer from Lincoln Premium Poultry, a Costco subcontractor that would manage the plant, announced that no one from his company or Costco would attend a larger, citywide gathering scheduled to be held at a meeting hall south of the railroad tracks. “We’re not going to meet with a lynch mob,” Shafer said. After another meeting hosted by Nebraska Communities United in September, I was approached by a man named Gene Schultz, a member of Doug Wittmann’s Tea Party group, who told me that he had changed his position somewhat on Mexican workers at Hormel. “At least they’re not Muslims,” he said. “Muslims will cut your head off.” Later, I looked up his lengthy Change.org signing statement, which included a warning that if Costco were allowed to build its plant, the Muslim call to prayer would blare from loudspeakers in Fremont five times per day. “When hundreds of Somali or Syrian Muslims come to our town they will change our culture,” he wrote. “These are typically uneducated, sharia-loving Muslims that have no concept of our Constitution, laws, or modern way of life.”

A man named Gene Schultz said he had changed his position somewhat on Mexican workers. “At least they’re not Muslims,” he said. “Muslims will cut your head off.”

Wiegert, meanwhile, was a regular presence at the city council meetings, loudly railing against Costco’s putative workforce. He was also a reliable source for inflammatory statements in the media. When reporters called, he always denied being a racist and instead talked about legal immigration and the rule of law, the impact that refugee children would have on local schools, and his belief that communities should be able to decide “who they do or do not want as neighbors.” Inevitably, though, he would veer off course, and insist that there is good reason to be afraid of Muslims, and Somalis in particular, given instances of terrorism around the world. He told one reporter he didn’t want a single Somali in his town: “Even if there’s one, there’s one too many.” He talked to the Omaha World-Herald, the state’s largest newspaper; went on American Public Media’s Marketplace; and even gave Katie Couric a guided tour of Fremont for a documentary series set to air next year on the National Geographic channel, driving her around the trailer park south of town where most of the “illegals” live.

Ruppert did everything he could to counter Wiegert. “Animosity needs to be set aside,” he told the local newspaper. “We need to proceed with the facts as we know them, and proceed in a way that does not divide the community.” And his environmental message did seem to have an impact—to an extent. In December, after repeated demonstrations that the land in question was in a flood plain—and barely a half-mile from the main channel of the Platte River—the city council approved tax-increment financing to assist with relocating the covered lagoons from the Costco site to land adjoining the wastewater-treatment facility, three miles away. But this short-term victory proved costly. With no council debate, the private farmland was earmarked for acquisition by the city via eminent domain—and with the improved sewage treatment, Costco then applied to expand the size of the plant onto additional land, increasing production to more than two million chickens per week. The new plan was unanimously approved by the city council. What’s more, after Donald Trump was elected president, the fear of HUD suing Fremont over its anti-immigration ordinance also eased; the city raided the $2 million legal defense fund and used the money to address infrastructure needs expressed by Costco.

Ruppert knew he needed help from large environmental groups to keep up. He couldn’t research the new site, look into the new sewage plan, and investigate the companies slated to complete the work; it was too much to do alone. He turned to national environmental organizations for assistance, but they were of little use. “I’m incredibly disappointed in the Big Greens,” Ruppert told me. “I don’t know what they do with their money. I truly don’t. We’ve had little to no help—a lot of ‘support’—but where are you on these issues? These are the issues that you’re supposed to be fighting for.” Without assistance from the outside, Ruppert and Nebraska Communities United reluctantly decided to shift their message away from opposing Costco on environmental grounds and toward fighting the city of Fremont on its use of eminent domain.

Doug Wittmann, for one, was delighted by the change. As a Tea Party true-believer, he strongly opposed the idea of government being able to take away private land for any reason. “The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—or property—being among the rights that God gives us, is sacred,” he told me. Wittmann was able to rally renewed support from his group, and Dave Domina, who had extensive experience in eminent-domain law from working with landowners on the Keystone XL route, said he was willing to help with a legal challenge to this use of governmental power for private corporations. He agreed to draw up the language for a ballot measure to officially curb the eminent-domain powers of the city of Fremont.

The problem with compromises is that once you start making them, you may not be able to stop. To get Domina’s measure onto the ballot, the Costco opponents had to get enough people to sign a petition supporting it. And who among them had more experience in putting together walking lists and working with canvassers? Who had shown more tenacity in making calls and going door to door collecting signatures? It took some doing, but finally Ruppert agreed to Wittmann’s suggestion for the named lead petitioner: John Wiegert.