The Democrats’ Swalwell Follies

Friday’s Five Quick Things column had four other entries, all of which I thought were more interesting, but the one which got me the most feedback was Thing #4 about Eric Swalwell, the noxious, oafish California congressman who, over the weekend, “suspended” his bid to become that state’s governor amid a tsunami of allegations of sexual abuse in his past.

Here’s what I said about Swalwell (in part; feel free to read the whole thing here)…

Eric Swalwell is a political beta male. He might be a sexual alpha predator, if only in a hookup sense, but it’s the lack of moral standing that makes it impossible for him to wield any real power within that party. He’s compromised.

If you look around, you will see that’s true of the vast majority of the higher-profile male Democrat politicians around the country. My theory, which I’ll confess is pretty new, and I’ve not fully tested it, is that this is a major — if not THE major — factor in the Dems’ hard matriarchal turn of late. That party has been feminized, and its moderating forces stripped away, because it no longer can produce male politicians with traditional convictions.

I mean, how can you when you want to turn boys into girls and Trump Derangement Syndrome is your sole political currency? What self-respecting male would be willing to lead a party like that?

It’s probably worthy of a little further examination, because I did get a few questions about what I meant in that passage.

First, though, boy… this really escalated quickly, didn’t it?

“I am suspending my campaign for Governor,” Swalwell wrote on X on Sunday. “To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past.”

He wrote, “I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made — but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s.”

The Democratic congressman’s exit completed a stunningly swift collapse for a candidate who had shown signs in recent weeks of pulling ahead of a crowded Democratic field, with prominent interest groups and elected officials beginning to coalesce behind him.

But an ex-staffer’s allegation that Swalwell had sexually assaulted her, detailed in a San Francisco Chronicle report and followed by more misconduct allegations in a CNN report, led those allies to abandon Swalwell en masse as high-level staffers departed his campaign.

Swalwell started last week vehemently denying accusations against him as nakedly political attacks on the race’s frontrunner. He ended it politically isolated, his top campaign surrogates and prominent endorsers withdrawing their support or urging him to exit the race.

By Friday afternoon, Swalwell’s two campaign co-chairs, Reps. Jimmy Gomez and Adam Gray, called on Swalwell to drop out, as did Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement saying the accusations “must be appropriately investigated with full transparency and accountability,” and that, “As I discussed with Congressman Swalwell, it is clear that is best done outside of a gubernatorial campaign.”

Swalwell had come under enormous pressure not only in the governor’s race, but in the House, too, where he now is facing calls for his expulsion. Meanwhile, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is investigating allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer in a New York City hotel room in April 2024.

And then, as the Swalwell Outrage Frenzy entered its critical stage…

“I am deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make.

“I am aware of efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote against me and other members. Expelling anyone in Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong.

“But it’s also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties. Therefore, I plan to resign my seat in Congress.

“I will work with my staff in the coming days to ensure they are able, in my absence, to serve the needs of the good people of the 14th congressional district.”

That’s from the honorable Sir Fartsalot himself, when he realized this wasn’t just about his future as Gavin Newsom’s successor but his personal freedom.

I had a quite good – and quite prescient – column already written about this on Monday afternoon, just before the Swalwell feeding frenzy consumed him. Because it was being floated, apparently not just among the denizens of the Democrat hackosphere, that Republicans in the House would consider a grand bargain in which Swalwell would be expelled from Congress along with Texas GOP cretin Tony Gonzales in some sort of idiotic prisoner exchange-type arrangement.

I’m pretty sure our regular readers can predict what I had to say about that. Thankfully, the Swalwell follies became a far larger production than could be contained within the bounds of such ecumenical dumbassery, and his party shortly recognized there was no further monetization possible of Swalwell as a political entity.

I noted that striking at Swalwell, and Swalwell alone, would isolate him in a way which would either force the Democrats to back him — as they have done for a decade when they knew damned well how toxic he was — or to run away from him and in so doing, break their morale in a way that can be weaponized against others who should also be expelled from Congress.

Like Ilhan Omar. Or Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who ripped off $5 million in FEMA funds in a case almost nobody seems to know about.

That’s still good advice for dealing with the other smelly kids in the class (though nobody is as smelly, on a number of levels, as Swalwell has been).

It’s hardly a surprise that Eric Swalwell is politically radioactive now. The Democrats have known that he was politically radioactive — or that he would eventually reach that status — since Barack Obama was president. They knew he was screwing a Chinese spy, and they still put him on the Intelligence Committee. And Nancy Pelosi pretended there were “no concerns” over that indefensible decision.

Why? Here’s why…

Swalwell’s political career should have been over after he slept with a Chinese spy. It wasn’t.

Instead, Pelosi put him on the Intelligence Committee so he could tell ridiculous lies about Trump and Russia.

Democrats enabled this monster.pic.twitter.com/lVzF21r0lJ

— MAZE (@mazemoore) April 11, 2026

Swalwell was weaponized by his party to attack Donald Trump on the basis of an indefensible, obvious, malicious lie — that Trump was compromised by the Russians and acting on their behalf as some sort of Manchurian (Siberian?) Candidate. (RELATED: ‘Accountability’ for RussiaGate? Don’t Bet on It)

Which gets me back to the statement I made in the 5QT on Friday.

They knew Swalwell had no moral standing to judge Trump or his loyalty to the country. Swalwell was banging a Chinese spy, plus he was repeatedly leaking sensitive information as a member of that committee.

Eric Swalwell: Allegations of sexual misconduct, leaking sensitive information and more.

According to this 2017 FBI report, “(Redacted) noted Swalwell has been the source of a lot of leaked information and had to be counseled to be more careful.”

This week’s subscriber Article… https://t.co/BCdkPSW9se pic.twitter.com/a6wEBSXtK5

— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) April 13, 2026

You’d say it’s insane to use Swalwell in the role of Trump accuser, but if you do, it shows you don’t understand the Democrats at all. The fact that Swalwell was guilty — and everybody knew it — of that which he was falsely accusing Trump is a feature, not a bug.

If you’re today’s Democrats, you don’t burn somebody with a good reputation in order to spread a lie like the Trump-Russia hoax. You burn a Swalwell, because you know it’s only a matter of time before Swalwell goes up in smoke.

When he does, you touch off the frenzy, and you let the fire consume him, and you forget he ever existed, which is what they’re doing now — while at the same time, dangling his ouster from Congress to the Republicans as a consideration for getting rid of Gonzales. If the GOP is dumb enough to take that deal, you wash your hands of Swalwell and snicker that you suffered no net political loss from his demise.

After using him for a decade to smear the man atop the GOP.

This is how they play this game. And it almost worked for them, except that the dirt was simply piling up too fast to contain it.

They were never going to let somebody like Swalwell have an actual leadership position within their party. It’s not that they respect any notion of moral standing; it’s that a compromised white guy is a tool to be used, not a leader to be followed.

Look at Joe Biden and that pattern, which established itself right around the time Obama took that party over, becomes obvious.

A strong, uncompromised, straight male leader within that party — especially if he’s white — would likely rein in the worst of their Hard Left political, economic, and cultural excesses, both because they’re horrific politics and because nobody can govern effectively while saddled with those. This is a party run by the Liz Warrens, Kamala Harrises, and Abigail Spanbergers of the world. They don’t take orders from alpha males. (RELATED: I Miss the NYC Democrats I Used to Work With)

And as I said, Swalwell was never an alpha male. Not politically, and not on the national scene. Swalwell was a step-n-fetch-it for the Democrat machine, because they all knew who and what he was. They weaponized him against Trump because he was a political suicide bomber; my guess is that most of the top brass at the DNC are utterly amazed he’s lasted this long before being taken out.

Is it a smart strategy? Well, with Swalwell leaving the California governor’s race, the Democrats’ top candidate is Katie Porter, who is even less palatable than Swalwell. I haven’t seen the polls to back up this contention, but based on how she’s performed so far and her own bizarre persona, I don’t think Porter could beat Steve Hilton without “help” in that race. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: The Glorious Return of the 5QT)

(And our regular readers, I’m sure, know what I mean by “help.”)

So maybe it’s too smart by half.

On the other hand, these are the strategies you employ when you don’t have other strategies available.

There are very, very few non-compromised straight white male politicians in the Democrat Party. Probably even fewer non-compromised straight non-white male politicians, for that matter. And none, or virtually none, of either stripe are competent enough to carry either a policy or political agenda over the long haul.

And so you have a collection of Eric Swalwells being inflicted on the public in order to carry out the various pieces of the Democrats’ action plan. (RELATED: The Spectator P.M. Ep. 205: The Impending Collapse of Eric Swalwell)

Chuck Schumer. Chris Murphy. Chris Coons. Dick Blumenthal. Adam Schiff. Hakeem Jeffries. Robert Garcia.

They’re all the same. They’re all expendable. When any of them seek to actually run anything, like going for the presidential nomination or even running for governor, they find out how expendable they are.

Swalwell is going to get the Brett Kavanaugh treatment — though with mostly true allegations in Swalwell’s case — until he goes away entirely. Because he’s all used up now.

A smart GOP would recognize this dynamic and prolong it as long as possible for maximum collateral damage.

But the Swalwell Follies doesn’t appear to have a long run in the big theater. That’s a pity. Hopefully it’ll last a while as a sideshow on the judicial stage, though, because the consequences of what he’s done – on multiple levels – need to be sufficient to give pause to the other Swalwells out there.

READ MORE from Scott McKay:

Five Quick Things: Finally, an Iran-Free 5QT!

It May Not Be a Ceasefire. It Might Be a Strategic Pause.

The ‘Real’ Must Triumph Over the Fake — In Iran and Elsewhere

Image licensed under Attribution 2.0 Generic.