I go into every week with the hope that I will be able to highlight good things that are happening for working class Americans. I want to write about how women have gained rights for them and their daughters, not how they have to be more fearful. And I want to provide an outlook for the future that we can be proud of …
But that simply isn’t the reality we live in. So I sit here on a Friday morning writing about men resigning from Congress in shame. I write about 62 million visits to an online rape academy. And I try to bend a monopolistic merger into some sort of consumer value for people who can’t afford to travel.
One day we might get there, the midterms are coming up quick, but right now – we endure the chaos and try to make sense of another week under the Trump regime. It can be difficult, but if there is one thing I have learned over the past year of this second Trump term, it’s that the sheer will of the American people is unmatched.
They will not defeat us and we will keep on fighting.
Monday, 4/13 – Swalwell & Gonzales Get the Message
Under threat of expulsion, Representatives Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales resigned from Congress this week.
They both escaped the almost certain national and political embarrassment of investigations and expulsion votes for their respective scandals, but are still waiting to see what other consequences may arise.
In Swalwell’s case, the pressure had been building for weeks. Reports of inappropriate relationships with staffers – paired with questions about judgement, power dynamics, and internal office expenditures – triggered a House Ethics Committee review that was not going away quietly. What started as whispers online turned into documented complaints, and once leadership realized the votes were there to move forward, the writing was on the wall for Swalwell. Resigning now lets him avoid the spectacle of a formal congressional rebuke, but it doesn’t erase the paper trail or whatever comes out of the investigations announced by the Manhattan DA and authorities in Los Angeles.
Gonzales’ situation played out differently, but ended in the same place. Allegations tied to misuse of campaign funds along with a personal relationship with a staffer that reportedly ended with her setting herself on fire opened the door for both ethics scrutiny and potential legal exposure. Once details started to harden and his Republican colleagues began to distance themselves, his refusal to resign became a liability. Staying meant risking not just his seat, but a very public unraveling of everything tied to his name.
That’s what matters here. This wasn’t personal accountability – not really. It was timing. It was two members that read the room and understood that the system was finally about to move. They just chose the exit before they were forced out of it.
Because in Congress, resignation isn’t the punishment – it’s just the escape hatch.