ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

Did Sex Scandal Rep. Eric Swalwell See His Own Political Collapse Coming?

As the saying often goes, it appears that an all-too-ambitious politician f--ked around—and then everyone found out.

Politics as theatre. Celebrity as currency. Wellness as religion. And power as the only real language in the room. Subscribe to PRIMAL SCREAM with Joanna Coles on Substack for exclusive news, reviews and commentary.

A month ago, I was invited to join a small group for tea to meet the California congressman and gubernatorial candidate Eric Swalwell in a downtown New York City loft. He was charming, funny, attractive, disarmingly normal, and apparently at ease with himself. The kind of politician who makes you think: maybe. And then he sat down to address us. I had expected he would speak about Trump, naturally, but for a solid 15 minutes, Swalwell talked about the danger he was in. The message wasn’t subtle: he was in the crosshairs. Between bites of uncured soppressata, I scribbled one note: “concerned for personal security.” The next morning, though, there he was on CNN, describing himself as a fighter-protector. Now facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, Swalwell has called the claims “absolutely false,” politically motivated, something he would also fight “with everything I have.” But he has since suspended his campaign for California Governor, and his future in Congress looks increasingly dicey. It occurred to me that perhaps his earlier fixation on security wasn’t about external threats at all. Maybe by then, he knew the walls were already closing in.

Can a political brand—other than President Donald Trump’s—ever truly survive a scandal this personal? Click through to PRIMAL SCREAM to read Joanna Coles’ full analysis.