LIBERAL, Kan. Kay Burtzloff, a 61-year-old small-business owner whos lived in this area for nearly 20 years, likes to joke that shes one of Liberals only liberals . The county, after all, went to Donald Trump by more than 30 points, and in the runup to the 2016 election, Burtzloff decided against putting a Hillary Clinton sticker on her car, fearing vandals. Tensions were high, she said.

Its a conservative place for sure, but also a diverse one. For years, immigrant workers from Vietnam, Mexico and eventually Somalia have moved to this flat stretch of prairie and farmland on the Oklahoma border to work at the meatpacking plants. For the most part, people got along, Burtzloff said, but something changed when Trump entered the political scene.

I will be the first to tell you I do not fear getting killed by a Muslim, Burtzloff said. I fear getting killed by an angry white guy. That is much more likely to happen.

Its here in a trailer in this town of 20,000 people that three white men fueled by a steady diet of anti-Muslim online memes and conspiracy theories, and captivated by presidential candidate Trump, who proposed a Muslim ban and proclaimed that Islam hates us appeared to discuss a plot to massacre Somali Muslim immigrants who lived and worked nearby.