Eric Swalwell, a Democrat representing a D+20 San Francisco Bay area district and who is running for governor, has been accused of assaulting four women and also of lying about whether he had his staff sign NDAs. He’s running for governor, so he needs to go, and he should resign his House seat. It’s pretty simple, but some of the Blue MAGA types on BlueSky are looking for conspiracies from both the right wing and from Katie Porter’s campaign, mainly because they hate Katie Porter.
This opens up the topic of the difference between admiring and respecting a politician, and whatever it is that Swalwell’s defenders feel towards him. I admire and respect AOC, Ilhan Omar, Kat Abughazeleh and Claudia Sheinbaum for their bravery and political skills. That doesn’t mean that I feel obliged to defend them if they were every accused of corruption or sexual assault, as unlikely as that latter charge would be.
Fortunately or unfortunately, in today’s celebrity culture, a lot of people vote for politicians they “like”. The three Democrats I named in the last paragraph — AOC, Omar and Kat Abu — are, in my view, pretty likable, but Republicans and centrist Democrats have been hammering on them for years, trying to make them less “likable”. The supposedly liberal media, which is actually status quo media, mostly publish negative or questioning stories about them. I think these three women are smart enough to push a positive narrative about themselves in social media and in press appearances. They also are smart enough to selectively address criticism rather than just pretending that it doesn’t exist. This is the way forward for Democratic candidates in our celebrity culture.
The old saw is that “Democrats fall in love, and Republicans fall in line.” I’d argue that current events show that Republicans fall in love, even harder than most Democrats, because of the irrational cult of personality around Trump. This is partially due to the core of MAGA support being Klan Christians who are both racist and conditioned to support patriarchal authoritarianism.
This brings us to JD Vance, who the status-quo both-sides media is trying to prop up as the hero of the Iran negotiations. (Steve M has the details on that.) Vance is on what should be a shit mission that will tarnish his career: trying to make terms of surrender dictated by Iran look like a “negotiation” and a “win”. First, this is the motherfucker who went on every manosphere podcast on earth to tell all the young incels that the Trump Administration wouldn’t be starting wars. Second, he is seeding stories saying that he quietly opposed the war, but had to go along as a good soldier.
If we had a functioning media machine, or even some coordination in our party communications, JD Vance would be absolutely in the barrel right now, going through it. If he’s really against the war, doesn’t he have the guts to say it? If he’s such a smart fucker, shouldn’t he be smart enough to get Iran to agree to opening the Strait without conditions and turning over their uranium? We should be going hammer and tongs against this overeducated fool. Right now is the time to nip his presidential ambitions in the bud.
