Why Swalwell But Not Trump?

Parties can end political careers, if they want.

After a series of women accused him of horrific acts of harassment, rape, and sexual misconduct, Eric Swalwell suspended his bid for California Governor and resigned his seat in Congress.

It’s hard to avoid the comparison with Donald Trump, who has also been held liable by a jury for sexual assault and who has been accused of assault and sexual misconduct by at least 28 women. Swalwell was out of politics days after accusations went public. Trump remains the leader of his party and the country more than a decade after many of his accusers came forward.

Why did Swalwell face accountability so swiftly while Trump has barely faced accountability at all? It’s not a mystery; Swalwell is gone because his party demanded he go, and Trump is not gone because his party did not. It’s worth looking at the differences a little more closely, though, if we want to see what real pressure on Trump would look like—and who is in the best position to apply it.

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Everybody says Swalwell must go

A week ago, Swalwell was solidifying his position as the leading Democratic candidate in the California primary. He had numerous endorsements from Congressional colleagues and state level politicians, and close ties to state power brokers like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Adam Schiff.

When the accusations were made public last Friday, however, Swalwell’s support swiftly and uniformly abandoned him. Within days every one of his 21 colleagues in Congress—House and Senate—unendorsed him. House leadership called for him to end his campaign. The California Democratic Party Chair did as well. Swalwell’s campaign staff and congressional staff condemned him and resigned en masse.

Some random Democratic commenters on social media have defended Swalwell. That’s disheartening, but probably inevitable; you can always find someone to say something foolish and ugly. As far as Democratic elected officials go, however, he did not have a single supporter. Everybody agreed he had to go.

Swalwell’s public statements, and his continued insistence that the worst of the charges against him are false, make it clear that he would have preferred to maintain his campaign and to hold onto his seat. Faced with unanimous condemnation, though, he had little choice but to step down. With the entire party counter-endorsing him, he had no path forward in the governor’s race, no way to continue to attract voters, no way to fundraise. Without staff, he also couldn’t even pretend to continue on in Congress.

Swalwell faced other mechanisms of accountability. The House had begun the process to potentially expel him, and the Manhattan DA’s office has begun an investigation into accusations that he sexually assaulted a woman in New York in 2024. These moves are important, and they may have helped encourage Democrats to abandon him.

But as we’ve seen with Trump, criminal charges do not necessarily end a career, and condemnation from partisan foes, and partisan foes alone, can solidify one’s position in the party. It was not the beginning of often slow formal institutional methods of accountability which forced Swalwell to resign. It was the fact that the Democratic party informally, but forcefully and unanimously, ejected him.

Republicans don’t want Trump gone

The contrast with Trump is stark. There have been moments when Trump has faced significant pushback from Republicans in the last decade plus—when the Access Hollywood tape was released; after his coup attempt; even this week when he posted a picture of himself as Jesus.

Republicans rebuking Trump, however, have rarely demanded his effective ejection from the party—and, perhaps more importantly, they have never turned on him uniformly. Even after the coup, when Trump’s mob literally threatened the lives of everyone in Congress, Republican and Democrat, more than 130 Republicans in House and Senate continued to support him, refusing to certify election results at his behest. There has certainly not been a moment when Trump’s staffers abandoned him or issued a joint letter condemning him.

In the absence of coordinated and sustained Republican opposition, GOP critics —from Justin Amash to Liz Cheney to Mitt Romney to Marjorie Taylor Greene—have been isolated and easy to target and eliminate. Essentially, Trump opponents have been treated like Swalwell; they have been de facto expelled from the party. There is no wrongdoing for Republicans, it sometimes seems, other than opposing Trump.

This may be changing to some extent; Thomas Massie, a Kentucky GOP congressman who has opposed Trump on key votes, looks like he may retain his seat despite a Trump-backed primary challenge. Media figures like contemptible far right bigots Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, and Candace Owens have been more willing to speak against him. But sporadic acceptable criticism from non-electeds is still a long way from uniform rejection by the party.

What it takes

The point here is not to suggest that Democrats are always unproblematically righteous and that Republicans never in any circumstances have any red lines. Rumors about Swalwell had circulated for some time, which raises the question of why his allies and colleagues did not force a reckoning much sooner. Many elected Democrats have embraced Senate candidate Graham Platner in Maine, despite his history of ugly statements, including his use last week of the r word in an interview. And Republicans joined with Democrats this week to force Representative Tony Gonzales to resign; he, like Swalwell, has been accused of sexual impropriety.

Party actors are influenced by both the seriousness of the charges and by the power of the person accused of wrongdoing. Platner’s comments on reddit are ugly, but the accusations against Swalwell are inarguably, unambiguously much, much more disqualifying. Republicans are willing to eject Tony Gonzales, a single congressman, at the same time as Swalwell so that they don’t lose their margin in the House. Ejecting Trump, the president and leader of the party—a move that would almost certainly lead to chaos and election losses—is another story.

Politicians balance their own sense of what is unacceptable with their own sense of how to maintain and advance their political power and political agenda. Elected leaders always have at least one eye on their own power and influence. Nonetheless, the key takeaway from Swalwell’s swift fall, though, is that parties have the power to discipline their members if they are forceful and unified.

Political scientist Julia Azari points out that neither impeachment nor the 25^th Amendment is well suited to removing Trump. She’s correct. But it’s also important to recognize that Swalwell wasn’t removed through any formal or institutional method. His party simply withdrew its support in a decisive and effective way. If Republicans did the same for Trump, he would also be isolated and would also face enormous pressure to resign.

Of course, Republians aren’t going to do that because they are a fascist, pro-abuser party and they like their fascist abusive president. But GOP support for Trump is not some sort of permanent, transcendent truth. It’s a choice, and they have the power, every one of them, to choose differently. Lisa Murkowski could switch parties; Marco Rubio could resign; John Kennedy could refuse to approve judges. They all have agency and they all have real power.

Trump is a collective Republican phenomenon. His individual bad actions are tacitly or less tacitly endorsed and enabled by his party as a whole. The GOP has backed Trump for more than a decade. It is unlikely that they will stop. But they could. And if they did, he, like Eric Swalwell, would be gone.