Congressman Dana Rohrbacher was not only all smiles Election Night in the second floor of Skosh Monahan's in Costa Mesa; he was as giddy as a schoolboy who just got away with pranking the class nerd. Hundreds of people came in and out of his self-proclaimed Liberty Lounge to celebrate not just the unfolding victory of Donald Trump, but the coronation of Dana himself.
See, it was Dana almost alone who had stumped for the President-elect among elected officials in Orange County, Dana who called national GOP leaders “gutless” for not supporting Trump, Dana who engaged in a civil war with his own party in Orange County. Tellingly, OC GOP chair Fred Whitaker didn't have Dana's shindig on his schedule of GOP Election Night parties to attend, instead showing up at his own function at China Palace in Newport Beach before heading off to functions in Garden Grove and Buena Park for Supervisor Andrew Do (who easily won reelection) and Assemblywoman Young Kim (who didn't), respectively.
Whitaker would've probably been booed by Dana's fans, who looked like what would happen if Calvary Chapel and ROCKHarbor ever held a kegger together. “You—YOU—are the 'U' in 'U.S.'” Dana told them at one point. “I want to congratulate all of you—you did your part.” He praised them for having “taken so much criticism from the establishment Republicans,” as they went up to him to snap selfies and congratulate the man who once employed a pedophile.
With news that Orange County went blue for the first time in a presidential election since 1936, this is now Dana Rohrbacher's OC GOP. His loyalty to Donald Trump (whom Dana kept calling “Don Trump,” suggesting a familiarity that goes beyond mere retweets) will no doubt get repaid by the President-elect—will the man who once supported the Taliban get a cabinet position? Will the man who's increasingly looking like Grandpa Munster and once left a rental home wrecked be placed on higher-ranking congressional committees as the national GOP gets taken over by Trumpbros?
Will the man who was once represented as “Diana” to speak with RFK assassinator Sirhan Sirhan lead a civil war in Orange County to take over the GOP from the likes of moderates like Whitaker? Will Dana—whose wife, the former Rhonda Carmony, pleaded guilty to running a fake candidate back in the 1990s and spent most of Election Night yelling at a screen showing FOX News' Megyn Kelly—become OC's philosopher-king and lead to liberal purges the like of which haven't been seen in Orange County since the 1960s?
Be afraid, Orange County. Be very afraid.
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