Pleasanton, california – It was the drawing of a child, the type of sweet and simple sketch that hangs in the refrigerator, but something about the family portrait was off.
The heights and the proportion of adults to the off did not align, so Eric Swalwell asked his daughter: “Who are all these people?”
“That is Mr. Darly,” said infants' garden, naming the security escort that has been a presence, taking care of the Democratic congressman, his wife and three young children, for approximately his entire life. The bodyguard has become so familiar to the 6 -year -old who now considers him part of the Swalwell family.
Unfortunately, terribly, that is where we are as a country under the vindictive presidency of Donald Trump and the fist sick with his malignant henchman, Elon Musk: a place where protection is needed because the vocal political opposition can lead to physical danger.
Not only is the perspective of the middle child of Swalwell, but it intimidated some of his fellow legislators, those chosen to allegedly advise, consent and exercise his best judgment, in silence and submission. Swalwell listens to some of his republican colleagues in Capitol Hill.
Once he thought that his greatest fear was a primary challenge and the possibility of losing re -election. But, no, he said, it is deeper and more primitive than that. They fear personal reprisals and possible violence.
“Their spouses tell them:” Don't do this. Do not be the highest poppy in the field “, because when you do this to your family, everything becomes more uncomfortable. Go to the church, go to the field club. Your children will be harassed at school,” Swalwell said. “They don't mind losing their job. They just don't want an ox in their family.”
The former 44 -year -old criminal prosecutor has represented a moderately well -off portion of the suburbs of East Bay, Fremont, Livermore, pleasanton among them, during the last dozen years. He launched a general offer of President in 2019, the moment of the signal in an early debate when he challenged Joe Biden by remembering his first race for president in 1988, when Swalwell was a child.
The 40 -year -old Biden was correct at that time, Swalwell suggested blatantly, when he said it was time for the Democratic elders to “pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.”
“You are still right today,” Swalwell said.
“I still cling to that torch,” Biden replied, and the rest is, well, you know what happened.
Do not be too surprised if Swalwell makes another attempt for the White House in 2028.
Meanwhile, he is working to gather the democrats discouraged before the mid -period elections next year and continuing his rejection against Trump and Musk, all under protective surveillance, almost completely, must be taken into account, campaign funds and no dollars of taxpayers.
Swalwell, a centrist compared to many in the Delegation of the Congress of California, obtained the lasting enmity of the president and his followers during the first Trump administration, when the congressman was a constant and critical presence relentless in social networks and the cable television circuit. Goba the house in the session on January 6, 2021, and served as one of the nine political trial managers that retained Trump to realize that inciting the mafia that invades the Capitol that day.
According to Swalwell's account, he has spent more than $ 1 million on personal security in recent years. That is aware of other additional expenses: improved security systems in your home, the necessary use of metal detectors at the City Council meetings and, when appearing in the districts of other legislators.
He has received innumerable death threats against himself and his family. It has been physically approached. A suspicious package arrives at your home almost monthly. “That is worrying,” Swalwell said, “because he is demonstrating that they know where you live.”
Two years ago, on a family trip through the west, the congressman and his son were deliberately sneezed in a Chipotle restaurant.
Try to protect your children from politics and the deranged passions of the moment. “I don't want to poison his mind and make him care about the things that a young child shouldn't worry,” Swalwell said about his eldest son, now 7 years. “Oh, that,” he explained to the child, after they cleaned the respiratory waste. “That was a strange guy.”
However, reality cannot avoid affecting daily life. The children of the legislator can no longer play outside in their front courtyard. Too much risk.
Any person greater enough to have lived through the Clinton administration, George W. Bush's years or Barack Obama's time in the White House knows that RowbeD-Raw's political feelings are nothing new. But there is a qualitative difference with a spiteful, moody and score -led by Acrid example.
Unfortunately, “more and more people believe that the means to political power can …” Swalwell said.
It has grown a little tired, having lived under a constant threat for some time. “The alternative, just hiding under the bed, is not really productive,” Swalwell said.
But not everyone in his family is so ready to ignore the danger.
During lunch recently in his district, Swalwell had a conversation with his father.
The congressman has a close and loving relationship with his parents, despite his pro-trump feelings. (“We have a rule since I appeared in 2016, and there were many red hats in our fidingching family. My mother said: 'No more hats'”).
After seeing him repeatedly attacked with Fox News, Swalwell's father called him and asked: “” Can't you stay low and stop talking about this guy? … I am really worried that something happens to your children '”.
Swalwell gave a bite to his pita chicken wrapping. He told how his father, a police chief in Iowa from the small city, was fired because he faced the local child of the good child, in principle, in principle, to put together his little tyrannies.
That is why, Swalwell said, his family moved to the west, finally establishing himself in northern California. “I said: 'Dad, everything, in all the ways in which I answer, is what I learned from you as a police officer.'”
It is an example that your own children can see someday.
