The primary time I met John Eastman, he was what handed for a good Republican voice in Orange County.
Sparring with him on a neighborhood tv public affairs present a couple of decade in the past, I seen his huge, nearly mischievous smile.
Opposite to his fame as a conservative fire-breather, he appeared extra yip than chew. He provided nothing mental, nothing sharp — simply the same old pablum of that period’s Tea Social gathering Republicans.
A former clerk for Supreme Courtroom Justice Clarence Thomas, Eastman was dean of the legislation faculty at my alma mater, Chapman College, and mounted an unsuccessful run for California legal professional normal in 2010.
His quotes on authorized issues appeared in native newspapers, together with this one. He and famous authorized scholar Erwin Chemerinsky had a weekly phase referred to as “The Good Guys” on fellow O.C. conservative blowhard Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated radio present.
However in some unspecified time in the future, Eastman modified for the more severe. The person I bear in mind, who suggested Orange County supervisors on pension reform, turned a full-on tradition warrior.
All through the final decade, the professor fought in opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion rights for nonprofits, gaining a following in nationwide conservative circles. He slipped deeper and deeper into the perimeter aspect of the proper, to the purpose that he wrote a broadly mocked Newsweek opinion piece in 2020 arguing that Kamala Harris was ineligible to turn out to be vice chairman as a result of each her dad and mom had been immigrants.
His identify got here out and in of my social media feeds, however I didn’t give him one other severe thought till Jan. 6, 2021.
That’s when he strode onto the stage on the “Cease the Steal” rally close to the U.S. Capitol, wanting each bit the Batman villain: tan trench coat, floppy brown hat that unsuccessfully hid his wiry white hair, paisley scarf that complemented his ruddy face, and that very same huge smile I remembered from so way back that rapidly seemed sinister.
Much more nefarious was the Machiavellian scheme he had crafted to subvert a presidential election.
After Rudy Giuliani launched him as one of many “preeminent constitutional students in the US,” Eastman laid out his case.
With indignant phrases and finger jabs, he alleged that widespread voter fraud required Vice President Mike Pence to reject the electoral school rely that was taking place that day.
Everyone knows what got here subsequent. We’re nonetheless struggling the authorized and non secular repercussions of this tried coup a 12 months and a half later — a constitutional disaster {that a} Home choose committee is investigating in hearings this month.
Among the many individuals they’ve referred to as to testify? Eastman.
In a videotaped deposition launched final week, the smiling schemer of the previous is not any extra. A downcast, schlubby Eastman invoked his fifth Modification proper in opposition to self-incrimination 100 instances, in accordance with committee member Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands).
Emails have emerged detailing how Eastman unsuccessfully requested Giuliani if Trump may have the ability to pardon him forward of potential felony investigations. A federal choose opined in April that Eastman’s plans had been “a coup in quest of a authorized principle” and that their “illegality … was apparent.”
Eastman’s comeuppance has acquired nationwide protection and mock. His downfall can be important regionally. It represents one of many final gasps for what was once one of the insidious, influential freak exhibits of American politics: the Orange County conservative.
For many years, this Southern California archetype — conspiratorial, bigoted and avaricious — helped rework the occasion of Lincoln into the dumpster fireplace of immediately.
Donations and manpower from O.C. helped put native boy Richard Nixon and adopted son Ronald Reagan within the White Home and ensured that the John Birch Society turned the grandpa of QAnon.
O.C. Republicans turned immigrant-bashing right into a successful electoral technique. True believers went by way of a ending faculty of native places of work earlier than they made it to the large time of Sacramento and Washington, spewing so many inanities from their outstanding perches that Fortune journal — hardly a progressive publication — as soon as referred to as my residence county “nut nation.”
O.C. conservatism gained — till it didn’t. It wrecked the Republican Social gathering in California so badly that the GOP has been an afterthought in Sacramento for nearly a technology. And thru Eastman, the vestiges of this motion have practically destroyed our democracy.
Like a parasite that takes over a number, it turned the person from a run-of-the-mill legislation professor right into a cautionary story.
Eastman was by no means a outstanding determine within the Republican Social gathering of Orange County. However its tradition wars turned his. When he addressed the Jan. 6 crowd, he embodied the O.C. GOP’s faith of whining and resentment.
In a earlier period, Eastman’s newfound fame would’ve made him an O.C. folks hero.
As a substitute, after an outcry from college students and professors, Chapman College successfully pressured Eastman to retire per week after his Jan. 6 speech.
Few outstanding native conservatives have spoken up in his protection. Eastman has been diminished to bemoaning his destiny earlier than whoever will hear him. In certainly one of his final public appearances, in March on the Knott’s Berry Farm Lodge, was for an viewers of simply over 100.
Kooky conservatives nonetheless exist in Orange County. Trustees with the native Division of Schooling have wasted hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in taxpayer cash on unsuccessful lawsuits preventing Gov. Gavin Newsom over his COVID-19 insurance policies. Pandejos have stormed metropolis councils and college boards over masks and vaccination mandates and have demanded that school rooms ban crucial race principle and ethnic research. Dozens of O.C. residents milled in and across the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6; some have already pleaded responsible to assorted crimes.
Congresswoman Michelle Metal, who missed the Jan. 6 electoral school certification as a result of she had COVID-19, has repeatedly declined to reply questions on how she would have voted that day.
However as each election cycle passes and Orange County turns into extra various, the old-school O.C. conservative turns into increasingly a relic of yesteryear.
It is a place, in any case, that voted in opposition to Trump in 2016 and 2020, whose congressional delegation is majority Democratic, and whose Republican representatives are Korean American girls.
John: We hardly knew ye.