TFGs: Swalwell & Stephens

I have been trying so hard to be serious, and talk deeper about politics. This morning, the second installment of my extended take on the Never Trump ecosystem, and how they've already gotten all the gettable Republicans was scheduled to land, and then in the middle of the series - BAM - this shit drops.

I am talking about the complete flameout of California Democratic rising star, Eric Swalwell. A man who oozes inauthenticity, Who is as fake as a three-dollar bill, and who gives total creeper vibes.

In case you have lived under a rock, last Friday, the SF Chronicle and one other source dropped the bomb of a story revealing that Swalwell has a history of not only boorish behavior, but a huge jump over the line on sexually abusive behavior.

I will save you the tawdry details (because you probably already have read it, but in summary, he would drink heavily, and the staffers and women with him would be coerced into sexual situations they weren't consenting to, basically being like men throughout history) because it seems that this was not entirely a bolt out of the blue, that this wasn't (and shouldn't have been) a surprise.

Reporting has grown throughout the week that that august body, the House of Representatives, had circulated rumors of Swalwell's um, "flirty" behavior.

From the fucking subhead, Ruben Gallego had heard but disbelived the rumors? Really, after all that #metoo (we'll get back to that) in the late 2010's you didn't believe the rumors? You traveled with him and you didn't believe the rumors? You were friends with him, hung out with him, drank with him, and you didn't fucking believe the rumors?

Get the fuck out.

Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, acknowledged on Tuesday that he had long heard rumors that Representative Eric Swalwell was “flirty” with women, but had allowed his longtime friendship with the California Democrat to cloud his judgment and never said or did anything about it.

This is 100% the pattern from the Me-Too era, that there were lots of implicit knowing about the bad behavior, that it was rumored, but deniable.

And for a brief time there was a window when the women who were victimized by these wads of fuck were able to get the story out, and that repurcussions were meted out. Harvey Weinstein is still in prison.

But, there was a consensus (mostly among powerful men and political pundits) that it went too far, and the reelection of Trump seemed to write the coda of the Me-Too era as an aberration.

And then Eric Swalwell said "Hold my Beer". The cases we know about are mostly in the post Me-Too time frame. Allow me to channel my inner Sophie Lichterman - "ick"[1]

This article roasts Mr. Gallego, a Democratic Senator from Arizona, someone often talked about as having a bright future. He is a former US Marine, and codes as able to walk between reaching Republican constituents, but enough Progressive that he's often whispered about (especially by the Never Trump folks - who I am deep diving on) as the model to grow the anti-MAGA world.

A former member of the House who spent considerable time with Mr. Swalwell and served as chair of his short-lived 2020 presidential campaign, Mr. Gallego said that he had never witnessed him engaging in any such behavior and that Mr. Swalwell had misled and manipulated him into believing the accusations of harassment and assault against him were false.

This is so exactly the story we heard time and time again during peak Me-Too era. The close associate/friend/partner who never experienced the behavior, so they discounted it.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Indeed:

“I never saw him engage in any of the predatory behavior, harassment, sexual assault,” Mr. Gallego said of Mr. Swalwell, who has denied the allegations.

The conclusion: Me-Too failed to break this cycle of shitty male behavior, and that even seeing others (far too few) be held to account wasn't enough to reset their thinking.

Eric Swalwell denies all the accusations, and it seemed like he was going to steelman his way through this, but on Sunday he announced that he was dropping this campaign for California Governor, and then on Monday he finally realized that his career was over.

On Wednesday, another accuser came forward, and it is clear that this wasn't just a momentary lapse of control, but a pattern.

And as the article linked above lays out, the rumors had swirled around Swalwell, but the cocoon of the closed ranks keeps protecting these slimeballs.

And, believe the women.

Bonus fucker: Bret Stephens

Trump's latest gambit, the "Fuck it, we're going to five blades" approach (that is, blockading a strait that is already blockaded) is making Bretbug feel validated.

“The easiest method for the United States to reopen Hormuz,” I wrote last Tuesday, “is to start seizing tankers carrying Iranian crude once they reach the Arabian Sea.” I was reiterating a point I had made in this column a week earlier: “The principle would be ‘all or nothing’: Either energy flows freely from the strait, unimpeded by Tehran, or it doesn’t flow at all.”

Now, he thinks that Trump has retaken the strong position (uh ...) by denying any economic activity by Iran.

First, Trump should put Iran’s regime to a fundamental choice: It can have an economy. Or the regime can attempt to have a nuclear program while trying to control the Strait of Hormuz. But it can’t have both.

Uh, the one lesson that the world should have taken from the war to date is that Iran (and their repressive government) can take a LOT of pain. Mount Everest levels of pain. Or perhaps Olympus Mons levels of pain.

Regardless, I am pretty sure that Iran can absorb a whole lotta pain.

Then the Bug hits us with this:

Second, Trump must bear in mind what precipitated the current crisis with Iran — not its nuclear programs, but the murder of thousands of Iranian protesters in January. What Iran’s leaders fear more than economic collapse is the wrath of their own people.

Uh, sure my dude. They are sure scared of their own people (my head is shaking) and quaking in their boots. But he fucking forgets that Trump said some encouraging words along this line in January, but he doesn't give one iota of a fuck about the Iranian people. And neither do any of the chucklefucks who are prosecuting this war (c.f. Israel and Gaza).

He then goes into this gem:

Administration policy should be geared to exploit that wrath. That begins by breaking the information blockade the regime has sought to impose through an internet blackout. Fully restoring funding to Radio Farda, the Persian-language service of Radio Free Europe that the Trump administration slashed last year during the tenure of the incompetent Kari Lake would be one place to start. Flooding Iran with additional Starlink terminals — too many for the regime to stop — would be the next. What would not help, by contrast, is to target civilian infrastructure, particularly power plants, whose destruction could only bring misery to ordinary Iranians.

ha hahahahaha hahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahha

hahahahahaha hahahahaha

Ok, sure, we're suddenly going to bring back VOA and all that radio to promote American Values.

What a fucking moron.

Conclusions:

Both Swalwell and Bret(bug) Stephens have earned the TFG label. Stephens is earning a spot on Mount "Fuckin' Guy" memorial to boot.

The real take away though is that Reuben Gallego, the junior senator from Arizona who is probably gonna be a one term senator, his aspirations as a 2028 hopeful dashed by his utter fucktardery. He's been a darling of the Never Trump gang as a proof point that a nearly center-right coded Dem was the future they were going to try to foist on the nation.

Nice job folks.

1 - Sophie Lichterman is the producer of the Behind the Bastard podcast. When there is a male doing some fucked up shit around or to a girl of a woman, she interjects "ick". The episodes on P-Diddy were a never ending stream of ick