In the current social media swamp climate that’s laden with AI deep fakes and X bots pushing propaganda, there’s been a fascinating reaction to the Eric Swalwell scandal, which ended one of the worst weeks in this country’s history when we desperately could’ve used a win.

We’ve come to expect a giant news story dump on Fridays here in the Trumpian garbage fire, but it usually comes from the Republicans doing yet another terrible thing. After a week like the one we just survived, we needed the pendulum to swing back our way with the kind of uplifting news that rekindles our belief that we can still have nice things during the worst of times.

Seriously, the week began with Trump casually threatening to end a civilization, only to change his mind a few hours later by agreeing to a non-ceasefire ceasefire and a plan written by the Iranian government that he didn’t read and therefore explained very badly. The Republican non-response was yet another capitulation in a long line of never holding Trump accountable for anything, while they smugly kept blaming Joe Biden and the Democrats for everything.

Those same Democrats who were calling for impeachment and/or the 25th Amendment have now been pulled into the kind of scandal usually reserved for the worst of the Trump regime. The fallout from the bombshell allegations against Rep. Swalwell (D-CA) is still accumulating, with the sort of lurid and shocking details still coming to light that no one ever wants to hear, yet we hear over and over again about men abusing their positions of power.

We don’t have enough internet space to delve into the history of the patriarchy and why society ends up blaming victims of sexual violence far more than believing them. Or why this country is so provincial about sexuality that people are shamed into repression, then end up acting out in ways that can be harmful to themselves and others.

But there’s a pattern that always emerges online almost immediately as soon as a famous man is accused of being a sexual predator, and it has rarely been anyone’s first take that the women are telling the truth.

Look how many women have credibly accused convicted felon Donald Trump of various forms of sexual assault throughout his life. E. Jean Carroll is still waiting on her settlement, while his dozens of other accusers will never get any sort of justice.

It took multiple Epstein accusers coming forward after decades of anonymity before the media began seriously covering Trump’s relationship with him, and yet there’s still no accountability for his alleged decades of violence against women and children.

Think about how many women had to tell their stories about Harvey Weinstein before he ever saw the inside of a courtroom. Remember how Anita Hill was dismissed to clear a path for Clarence Thomas, and when Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony under oath wasn’t enough to keep Brett Kavanaugh off the country’s most powerful judicial bench.

So it’s not surprising to see what we’re seeing. This one just hits different.

My initial reaction to the story about Swalwell, whom I’d dubbed my “Dem Crush” all the way back during the first Trump impeachment trial, was “No! Not him!” That’s not my denial; that’s my disappointment. A LOT of women reacted this way, and it’s understandable. Democrats are supposed to be the good guys, champions of women, and Swalwell came across as a particularly good guy. His family was very much centered in his social media presence, the doting husband and devoted father of three adorable young kids, which makes all of this even worse.

While I was trying to get to the truth, various takes were happening all at the same time:

• The immediate shaming of the women who came forward, which of course conflicted with
• The immediate acceptance of the women who came forward
• Accusations that Roger Stone and Katie Porter were somehow involved
• Lots of people saying, “The timing is just weird!” when the article about Swalwell had been in the works for months
• Some Democrats are calling for Swalwell to drop out of the California Governor’s race — a bid he ended on Sunday. He then resigned from Congress on Monday.
• Other Democrats criticized anyone calling for Swalwell to drop out
• MAGA gleefully and unironically embracing the same kind of sex scandal that Republicans are far more often involved in, as if Swalwell’s story erases everything Trump has ever done

By Saturday morning, the Twitter consensus seemed to be that all Democrats are responsible for Eric Swalwell, but no Republicans are responsible for Donald Trump, but there’s been much more Democratic infighting than anything else. I got Instablocked by a longtime mutual follower because she was mad that I seemed to be jumping on an anti-Swalwell bandwagon, when I was in the very early stages of the Kubler-Ross grieving process.

This isn’t the same thing as when Democrats were prematurely abandoning Joe Biden in droves after he had a sore throat at his one debate with Trump. I never turned my back on Dark Brandon. But once I learned that someone I’ve known and trusted on social media for years, Adam Parkhomenko, is married to one of Swalwell’s accusers, Ally Sammarco, I knew I had to ignore all of the noise. Someone who’s zero degrees from Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to make up stories about anyone to get ahead.

Democratic women are facing a rough disappointment, one that feels similar to John Edwards breaking our collective hearts, but no one should be attacking each other over believing survivors of sexual violence.

The only person at fault for Eric Swalwell’s behavior is Eric Swalwell, and therefore, he’s the only one anyone should be mad at. And yet there’s already a divide among Democrats about this. Part of it is making sure a Republican never becomes Governor of California, but thankfully, the party has other choices besides Swalwell.

Hard truths take longer to get over, and this one is going to hurt for a while.