A post this morning from Mister Mix: One of These Things Is Not Like the Other, got me thinking about how/why generally good people have blind spots for the bad behavior of their peers.
To remind everyone, Senator Ruben Gallego, a close friend of Eric Swalwell, had a press conference this morning to supposedly clear the air about his relationship with Swalwell and any knowledge of Swalwell’s predatory behavior. This was going to be a challenging event no matter what for Gallego, but in my view, it didn’t go well.
Here are some snippets:
Q: You said you first heard these rumors a few weeks ago, then you said you heard these rumors for years. Which is it? GALLEGO: I heard rumors of him being flirty Q: That wasn't an issue enough for you GALLEGO: When you're close to somebody, you know his wife, you know it maybe isn't true
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-14T17:24:02.362Z
Q: You have future political ambitions. How can people trust you to run for higher office if you didn't know your best friend was engaging in inappropriate behavior? GALLEGO: Look, I messed up. I'm human.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-14T17:21:26.453Z
[Side Note: it’s amazing how the media seemingly has different standards for different parties; how it can go full court press on Democrats but doesn’t do the same for Republicans. One reporter asks, “How can people trust you to run for higher office if you didn’t know that your best friend was engaging in even inappropriate behavior?”
Let me be clear. I have absolutely ZERO problem with that question. The press’s job is to hold power to account. But where is that question for Mike Johnson in regard to Tony Gonzalez, or Trump himself with regards to his relationship to Epstein, or literally any member of Trump’s cabinet or any Republican who supports Trump while knowing he palled around with a serial pedophile, that there are credible accusation of Trump raping underage girls, and the fact that Trump is a convicted felonious fraudster and adjudicated rapist?]
So why the blind spots? Here are some seemingly obvious reasons right off the bat:
Relationship. Simply put, it’s hard to “rat” on your good friends. This doesn’t make it right to stay silent, but it is what it is.
Power Trip Ego. I’ve mentioned this before, but Members of Congress are generally put on a pedestal by staff and the public. Proximity to power has that effect on people. For too many electeds, this results in blindness to their or their peers’ shortcomings and bad behavior. Again, this is real (I’ve seen and felt it up close and personal) and it is what it is.
Political Pressure. In the DC bubble where everything is viewed as “us vs. them” and “D vs. R”, the political incentive to NOT say anything is pretty darn strong.
There are also a couple of other less obvious but critical-to-understand dynamics:
Group Dynamics. The Smoky Room Experiment undertaken in 1968 is a classic example of how group dynamics can affect individual behavior. To wit, participants sat in a room filling out a questionnaire. Smoke was secretly pumped into the room (often through a vent or under/through openings). Researchers observed whether people reacted.
The results? When a person was alone in the room, roughly 75% of participants left the room to report the smoke to someone. With 3 “real” participants, only 38% did so. Finally, with two actors in the room who ignored the smoke, only10% of the real participants reported it to someone.
Not Rocking the Boat. It tends to be difficult for individuals in a given group (congress, one’s company, one’s friend group, etc.) to call out behavior by another person in that group if others are not doing so. This is similar to the Smoky Room Experiment but, in my view, somewhat different. This dynamic is a result of perceived peer behavior (or lack thereof) and the ramifications for future acceptance in or into that given group. For Senator Gallego, it might be that he was concerned about being ostracized by his peers in congress or others in his political sphere.
A personal story:
I served as the Chair of the School District in my rural county for several years. The district had a policy for students qualifying for extracurricular activities (sports, academic groups like Speech & Debate, and other clubs). The policy stipulate that students would immediately be suspended form extracurricular activities if they were caught underage drinking or using drugs.
One board member had a daughter on the swim team. She was a good swimmer. The week before the State Swim Meet, she was arrested for drinking/driving as a Minor Under the Influence (MUI). Initially unbeknownst to the rest of the board, the “dad” board member spoke to the police in an effort to keep it under wraps so his daughter could swim the State Meet. When I learned of this, I called an emergency meeting of the board. At first, the majority of the 7-member board did not want to take any action. I quickly realized it fell on me to make a case. My argument was simple: while our nominal authority was written into state law, our true authority rested on the community’s trust. If people found out that the district had not taken any action with respect to a board member’s child violation, and that the Board had implicitly allowed this “exception”, we would lose whatever trust we had with the public; in addition, I told the board I personally was not willing to accept this behavior by a fellow board member and would not allow the public to believe I was willing to go along with the “dad” board member’s actions. Eventually, I persuaded the board to agree that it would proactively request the District Superintendent enforce the rules, which she did (and while there was no provision to recall a board member, eventually, the rest of the board pressured the “dad” board member to resign; and he did).
None of this is to say that Gallego has done anything wrong himself or that he is not telling the truth in his defense of his inaction regarding Swalwell (or that I am a paragon of virtue). However, if we are to make progress, especially in dealing with unacceptable behavior (whether it be in regard to sexual misconduct, racism, religious fanatism against others’ beliefs, or any other abuse), we need to be able to recognize these very human impediments to revealing the truth and be willing to push through them.
Easier said than done.
Oh – and we also need a free press to do what it is supposed to do with its 1st Amendment protection: hold power to account and critically question authority (in the sense of being skeptical) at every turn. So ask Senator Gallego tough questions. But also ask those same questions of others in positions of power/authority regardless of their actual or perceived status.
