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One thing I’ve learned over the years—especially when you’ve got the mic, the gavel, or the spotlight—is that everybody says they want fighters. But they don’t always know what a real fight costs.
When I sat down with Representative Eric Swalwell of California for this week’s episode of At Our Table, we talked about the toll that public leadership takes—especially when you refuse to back down. Not performative leadership. Not tweeting-into-the-wind leadership. But showing up in the trenches and doing the work, no matter how high the stakes or how hot the fire.
Rep. Swalwell’s been in that fire for years now. He’s taken arrows for standing up to Donald Trump, helping lead impeachment proceedings, and continuing to call out January 6 for what it was: an attempt to normalize political violence. His stories from inside Congress were candid and sobering, and they were exactly the kind of reality check we all need.
“We knocked 100,000 doors in my first campaign. And I still love getting out there. I’m a field guy.”
That line got me thinking [ [link removed] ]. Because it’s easy to forget that organizing—real, people-powered work—is where leadership starts. You don’t build trust from behind a podium. You earn it on the doorstep.
But that’s not the part that scared me. What scared me was what Rep. Swalwell shared about how many of his colleagues are afraid. Not afraid of losing an election—but afraid of what comes after if they vote their conscience.
“One member said to me, his wife told him don’t be the tallest poppy in the field. Another member told me… ‘If you do this, you’re gonna make life hell for your family.’ You can’t go to church. Kids get harassed at school. You’re marooned at the country club.”
Think about that. That’s not democracy thriving. That’s democracy under duress. And it doesn’t just silence voices, it warps our institutions from the inside.
Rep. Swalwell didn’t shy away from naming the real reason Trump is obsessed with January 6: not just to clear his name, but to lower the bar so far that political violence becomes “normal.”
“The second reason [Trump wants a new January 6 committee] is even darker than that. He wants to normalize political violence… He is saying that it wasn’t wrong for him to do it because the election was stolen. So if he normalizes that, it gives him the permission slip to do it again.”
If you’re not chilled by that, you’re not paying attention.
Rep. Swalwell is one of those rare leaders who knows exactly what he signed up for and still steps up anyway. He doesn’t do it for attention. He doesn’t do it for applause. He does it because he was raised with a sense of right and wrong that he refuses to compromise.
And in this moment—when the country feels like it’s being held hostage by the loudest, most extreme voices—we need more of that kind of courage.
“I don’t feel sorry for myself. I don’t have any problems I didn’t sign up for… I knew going into it that the arrows would come.”
We talk a lot about protecting democracy. But too often, we expect someone else to do the protecting. We think voting once every two years is enough. We assume the good guys will win in the end.
But democracy doesn’t defend itself. It relies on us.
Real leadership means standing up even when it’s uncomfortable—and especially when it’s inconvenient. Eric doesn’t just talk the talk. He walks the damn walk.
Pull up a chair for this one. It’s not light. But it’s real. And it reminds us what courage looks like.
— Jaime

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