Yes, Orange County has always had a neo-Nazi problem. An in-depth new book explains why

Ever heard of Orange County? This is where good Republicans go before they die.

It should come as no surprise that Orange County, the favorite state of the modern grandfather of American Conservatism, Ronald Reagan, would be a fertile ground for far-right ideas and white supremacy. Reaganomics aside, the OC has long held a special, if not somewhat secluded, place for beach vacations, modern conveniences and all-American family fun — famous for its hit shows (“The Real Housewives of Orange County,” “The OC” and “Laguna Beach,” among others). Even crime in Orange County has been popularized and admired, with themes expressed in luxury, secrecy and the illusion of urban perfection. For Eric Lichtblau, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, the real story is right-wing terrorism — and its unusual hold on regional affairs.

“One of the reasons I decided to focus on Orange County is that it’s not typical — not what you think of as the Deep South. It’s Disneyland. California,” Lichtblau said.

His new investigative book, “American Reich,” focuses on the 2018 murder of gay Jewish teenager Blaze Bernstein as a lens through which to examine Orange County and how the hate-motivated killing at the hands of a former schoolmate is connected to the country’s web of white supremacy and terrorism.

I grew up a few miles from Bernstein, attending a performing arts school like his – and Sam Woodward’s. I remember the first discovery of the murder when Woodward became a suspect, followed by the news that the case was being investigated as a hate crime. The murder followed the news cycle for years to come, but in its reporting, there was a lack of continuity in seeing how the event fit into a broader pattern and an ingrained history in Orange County. There was a bar down the street from me where an Iranian American man was stabbed just because he wasn’t white. Marblehead Beach Park, where friends and I visited for sunset photos, has been reported as a morning meeting place for neo-Nazis in bone mask training to fight “white solidarity”. These were just some of the many events that Lichtblau examined as signs of something less dramatic than a one-off.

Lichtblau started the book in 2020, in the midst of COVID. He wanted to find a place that symbolized the national epidemic he, like many others, was seeing — one of the highest records of attacks on Asians, attacks on Black, Latino and LGBTQ+ communities, and on the rise in extremist rhetoric and actions.

“Orange County fits a lot of those boxes,” Lichtblau said. “The horrific tragedy of the murder of Blaze Bernstein by one of his high school classmates – a former publisher – reflected the growing emboldened of the white supremacy movement that we have seen across America in recent years.”

Bernstein’s death was only two years earlier. The Ivy League student had agreed to meet her former classmate Woodward one evening during winter break. The two had never been close; Woodward was a lone wolf during his short tenure at the Orange County School of the Arts, before he was transferred to another state due to the school’s independence. On two separate occasions over the years, Woodward reached out to Bernstein under the guise of struggling with his sexuality. Bernstein didn’t know he was being seduced, or that his classmate was part of an underground network of extremists – linked to mass shooters, long-time followers of Charles Manson, neo-Nazi camps, and online chains where members shared a common dream of harming minorities and starting a white revolution.

“But how does this happen in 2025?”

These networks did not just appear. They have long been planted in Orange County soil, leading back to the early 1900s when the county was home to orange trees.

Mexican workers, who form the backbone of the orange-grove economy (second only to oil and manufacturing wealth that even led to the Gold Rush), met with violence when unionized workers wanted to strike for better conditions. The sheriff of Orange County, also an orange grower, issued the order. “SHOOT TO KILL, SAYS THE SHERIFF,” read a banner headline in the Santa Ana Register. Chinese immigrants have also experienced violence. They played a major role in establishing a state of governance in the region, but were accused of leprosy, and at the suggestion of the councilor, their Chinatown community was burned down while the white residents watched.

Gideon Bernstein and Jeanne Pepper Bernstein, center, parents of Blaze Bernstein, speak during a news conference after the 2018 sentencing of Samuel Woodward in Orange County Superior Court.

(Jeff Gritchen/Pool/Orange County Register)

Leading into the new millennium brought an onslaught of white power rock from the regional music scene. Members with shaved heads and Nazi memorabilia will dance to inspired declarations of white supremacy, clashing, if not, with non-white members of the community while listening to lyrics like, “When the last white man walks out of the OC, the American flag will go with me… We will die for your country and mine” (from the group Youngland).

Veteran and member of one of Orange County’s white power bands, Wade Michael Page, he later killed six brothers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012.

“It’s come and gone,” said Lichtblau, who saw the tide turn in the early 2000s — and over the years, when Reagandland broke in parts to turn purple. Even though it looks blue and red, Trump in the area has brought a new wave – which Lichtblau explains was motivated by “wanting their country back” and “taking the time that Trump freed.”

It can be difficult to understand the truth: that Orange County of white supremacy exists next to Orange County that is economically and culturally made up of its immigrant communities, where since 2004, the majority its inhabitants are people of color. Then again, for anyone who has spent a long time there, you will notice a strange mental tension within its cultural environment.

It’s a rare sight to see a MAGA stand selling nativist slogans on a street named after the Spanish, or Confederate flags on the back of pickup trucks pulling into the parking lots of neighborhood taquerias or Vietnamese pho shops to eat. Even though some of the families who have lived in the county for generations still employ Latino workers, yet inside their living rooms Fox News will be playing slurs about “Latinos,” alongside Reagan-era memorabilia proudly displayed next to framed Bible verses. This divisive reality – a multicultural society and one on the far right – strangely fills the frame of a region born from the separation from its neighbor, LA, to have an aggressive personality against the freedom seen by the neighbor.

It is this rejection of culture that has led to the “orange curtain” or “Orange County bubble,” suggesting that these allegedly racist views are always contained or, paradoxically, echoed within a regional environment. In contrast, Lichtblau saw how these white ideas of the city spilled out. Look no further than Uprising of the US Capitol on Jan. 6, and the date of issue of the letter.

Although popular belief may suggest that these rebels came from the depths, in reality they were on the contraryas Lichtblau explains. “It was coming from places like Orange County, where voting patterns were changing a lot,” he says. Some may argue – directly or indirectly – that Jan. 6 was simply a protest to stop stealing gone wrong, a temporary lapse or crowd opinion. But Lichtblau sees something much bigger. “This was white pride. There was a lot of neo-Nazi stuff, including a lot of Orange County stuff.”

As a society, it has been collectively decided to expect the profile of the lone wolf killer, abandoned, wearing an identity based on white oppression – a form of fighting unemployment benefits but still cashing a check. Someone like Sam Woodward, cut off from the roots of a once-honored Americana family, the kind of God-fearing Christians who, like the “American Reich” schooled in Woodward’s house, teach and gather out of psychological hatred, and even when focused on a murder case, continue to reach out to the victim’s family until the judge has to intervene. The existence of these suburban families is known, as is the slippery hope that one will never lose one’s way in this ever-spinning round of American roulette. But these people or their hate crimes are random, as Lichtblau discusses, and lone wolves are not as isolated as they are thought to be. These underground stations have long been embedded in the American landscape like landmines, now they have been revived by a far-right digital space that connects these members and reproduces their views on a national level. Lichtblau’s new investigation goes beyond the Orange County paradigm to show the deep cultural epidemic that exists.

Beavin Pappas is an arts and culture writer. Raised in Orange County, he now divides his time between New York and Cairo, where he is working on his first book.