Editor’s note: This article discusses explicit sexual acts.
California Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell, who until Sunday was running for governor of his state, will now be one of those cautionary tales his party likes to use in claiming that — unlike Republicans — Democrats are too concerned with principles and decency. It’s a pathetic coping front for what really happened with that sick party, which once again is living by the destructive, anti-American standards they’ve tried imposing on everyone else.
A few women in recent days — all anonymous except one — went to some media outlets to accuse Swalwell of sexual misconduct, including rape. The lizardly congressman has denied any criminal wrongdoing while also apologizing for “mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past.” Nevertheless, he suspended his gubernatorial campaign and now faces some pressure to resign from Congress, as well as a criminal investigation in New York.
Purely based on the so-far reported details of this unseemly saga, there’s no reason to deny Swalwell’s American entitlement to innocence before proven guilty. As is routine in these #MeToo episodes, the accusations are mostly just that — accusations — and the supporting evidence is limited to friends and family of the alleged victims who attest to their validity.
I’m inclined to believe that Swalwell cheated on his wife, perhaps even while she was pregnant, and that he’s not the kind of person young women should admire or aspire to work in any proximity with. One accuser, according to CNN, seemingly admitted to performing oral sex on Swalwell before telling him she wasn’t comfortable with it, to which he responded by honoring her change of heart by zipping up his pants. Sometime thereafter, she said she got drunk with him and ended up in his hotel room and had intercourse. “She later realized that the encounter was not consensual because she had been so intoxicated,” CNN said.
Virtually everyone in the report says their sexual encounters with Swalwell involved alcohol.
Another accuser said she went out to dinner with Swalwell, then sat at the back of a bar for drinks, before ultimately ending up in his hotel room. After that encounter, she said she told him not to contact her anymore, but that “she continued to stay in touch with Swalwell after that, however, exchanging some friendly messages with him, in what she likened to Stockholm syndrome.”
Somebody has to say it: At what point do a woman’s actions with alcohol, married men, and sex suddenly become someone else’s responsibility?
Based solely on the information publicly available as of Monday, Swalwell could legitimately deny all misconduct and cast the accusations as a conveniently timed political hit job intended to force him out of the governor’s race — a cynical ploy by the Democrat establishment to consolidate support behind one of the party’s candidates for the purpose of making it highly unlikely that the general election will include a viable Republican alternative.
Because that’s what’s happening. Too many Democrats are running, fracturing support to the benefit of just two Republicans, one of whom could very well end up in the general election if Democrats don’t rally behind just one or two of their own. That’s why this is happening now and not months ago, and it’s why Democrat leaders like Nancy Pelosi and union heads have pressured Swalwell to exit the race.
No one can feel sorry for Swalwell or any Democrat who ends up in the same position. They, with a great assist from the dying news media, pushed the “believe all women” nonsense. Swalwell is just as guilty as anyone else in his party of demanding that accusations of sexual misconduct be treated as all the proof needed to ruin lives.
He now gets to live by that same standard and watch his political career go up in smoke, which Democrats of the future will surely, disingenuously point to and say, “We hold ours accountable when Republicans never do.”
It’s a lie. Democrats aren’t holding Swalwell accountable. They’re removing an obstacle that potentially threatens their power in California. That the dynamic often tends to screw over many of their own members and voters says so much about what they will do to keep that power.
