Don't Stop with Eric Swalwell—Throw All The Predators Out
Democratic and Republican creeps alike have to go.
Social progress is uneven. Giant leaps can occur as the result of cultural forces that escape containment in conjunction with the organized efforts of people who work thanklessly for years before seeing any change.
These windows of progress open widest during moments of tumult and system stress. The resurgence of Black Lives Matter and Me Too during the first administration of President Donald Trump, which led to mass mobilization, was not a coincidence. America had elected its most openly racist and misogynistic president in contemporary history through an Electoral College that subverted popular will. An appalled public reacted.
We’re in April of 2026, Trump is once again our president, and another window is wide open.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA-14) was accused of rape and sexual assault, creating a domino effect of reckoning that finds at least four members of U.S. Congress in peril as of this writing. What were once whispered rumors are flying into public view, alongside incriminating testimony, images, and video content.
Concurrent with this reckoning is a metastasizing public disgust at the years-long inaction over the crimes committed by sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. His powerful alleged co-conspirators continue to walk among us, leaving an enraged public to search for culprits itself as the government fails to do much of anything other than continue to protect his associates.
Even First Lady of the United States Melania Trump reacted to the pressure this month, making an out-of-the-blue speech demanding a public Congressional hearing with Epstein survivors and asserting her own innocence, pointedly using the singular first-person instead of the plural amid her husband’s career low approval ratings.
Speaking of approval ratings, Congress finds its own approval somewhere not only beneath the floor but down in the bowels of Hell. Democrats and Republicans have a clear moment to regain a modicum of public trust by cleaning up their own House.
Instead of a partisan food fight, party leadership on both sides should sit down and hammer out a list of creeps who need to go. Make no mistake, they already know exactly who in their own conferences should be shown the door.
Leaders cannot wait for a lengthy procedural drama to play out. It’s well past time they march into the offices of every last known predator in the U.S. Congress and deliver an ultimatum: we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Predators can resign immediately or face a robust public reckoning with a guaranteed expulsion vote.
What about innocent until proven guilty? Some may ask. That is the legal standard and must remain so in every free society. But we don’t require a criminal finding to fire someone from a government job. Public officials must be held to the highest standards and maintain public trust. Absolutely no one is entitled to a seat in Congress. Plenty of public servants are waiting just outside the doors, ready and able to serve the American people better than this sorry bunch.
As someone who spends the vast majority of my professional time with elected officials and those who wish to be, I can promise you these are some of the most image-conscious people in the world. The bad ones know what they’ve done. Give them the option to exit of their own accord or promise to air their dirty laundry in public, and they’ll be on the first flight back to the very districts they’ve been ignoring.
The American people want to see congressional predators sent packing. All of them. Get these creeps out of our House. Then let’s talk about the U.S. Senate.