Eaton, New Hampshire is a place where a town official agrees to talk about a local controversy but insists on making eggplant parmesan for the occasion, where a reticent citizen who doesn’t want to be interviewed does so by “respectfully declining,” and where visitors to the Little White Church are reminded to check their politics at the door.

But it’s also a place where longtime friends have ceased speaking to one another, where name-calling attacks appear in the letters to the editor section of the local newspaper, and where a Confederate flag, a gay pride flag, a Black Lives Matter flag, a middle finger flag and other banners compete, flapping idly like the remnants of a recent war.