Sen. Justin Eichorn (R-Grand Rapids), left, consults with Sen. Scott Newman (R-Hutchinson), right, during a vote Thursday, May 12, 2022. Photo: Catherine Davis, Minnesota Senate Media Services
Sen. Justin Eichorn (R-Grand Rapids), left, consults with Sen. Scott Newman (R-Hutchinson), right, during a vote Thursday, May 12, 2022. Photo: Catherine Davis, Minnesota Senate Media Services
In May of 2025 Justin Eichorn of the Minnesota State Senate introduced a bill to brand people who disagreed with Trump as mentally ill—just before getting arrested for attempting to buy sex from a minor.
Republished with permission from Norman Berry
I somehow missed this story when it originally happened, but the recent guilty plea brought it back across my radar. And the irony here is almost unbelievable.
Former Minnesota Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn recently pleaded guilty in federal court to attempted possession of child sexual abuse material.
But you have to go back to March 17, 2025, to fully appreciate the hypocrisy.
That was the day Eichorn was associated with legislation seeking to define “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as a form of mental illness, essentially questioning the mental stability of people because of their reaction to Donald Trump.
That very same day, Eichorn was arrested after showing up to meet someone he believed was a 17-year-old girl for paid sex.
She wasn’t 17.
She wasn’t even a girl.
It was an undercover officer.
And this is no longer simply an allegation that can be dismissed as partisan mudslinging. In May [of this year], Eichorn stood before a federal judge and pleaded guilty after admitting that he asked the person he believed was a 17-year-old girl to send him sexually explicit images.
Now here’s where the irony becomes impossible for me to ignore.
This was a man participating in an effort to characterize other people’s political reactions as evidence of mental illness.
Yet I would argue that an adult’s desire to obtain sexually explicit material from someone he believes is a child raises far more serious questions about psychological health and judgment than someone’s opinion of a politician ever could.
I’m not attempting to diagnose Justin Eichorn. I’m making a much simpler observation:
If we’re going to start throwing around the language of mental illness to describe people whose politics we don’t like, perhaps we should be prepared to examine genuinely disturbing behavior with at least the same level of scrutiny.
Think about the contradiction.
Publicly, you’re helping question the mental stability of people because of their politics.
Privately, you’re asking someone you believe is 17 years old to send you sexually explicit images.
I don’t care whether there’s an R or a D behind your name. Wrong is wrong. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy.
I’ve always believed that character isn’t determined by what we demand from everybody else. Character is revealed by what we demand from ourselves, particularly when we think nobody is watching.
We have become so comfortable pointing across the political aisle, diagnosing everything that’s wrong with “those people,” questioning their morality, their intelligence, their patriotism and even their sanity, that sometimes we forget to look in the mirror.
Maybe we should spend a little less time examining everybody else’s character and a little more time examining our own.
Because in Justin Eichorn’s case, somebody actually was watching.
It just happened to be an undercover officer.
You simply cannot make this stuff up.
Norman Berry also known as the pro-survival rap artist ChillEB is an accomplished voiceover talent, jingle writer and screen actor. He recorded the theme song for the Golden State Warriors “Don’t Stop The Noise,” appeared in the Warner Brothers movie Mad City, starred in national commercials for Sega Genesis, PSA’s for the San Francisco Giants & the Contra Costa County Library System, Double Rainbow Ice Cream, Partnership For Drug Free America, Department Of Energy, Nike, Nickelodeon, National Basketball Association (NBA) and most recently recorded The Oakland Raiders theme song (for the 2015-2016 season), among more.
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