It’s Not Just What Brought Down the Disgraced Ex-Congressman Eric Swalwell, It’s Who

These days, online influencers have become as important to the success of political candidates as the mainstream media — so important, that last fall, Eric Swalwell, the now-disgraced ex-congressman, launched his now-aborted gubernatorial bid by holding a Zoom call with a group of California-based content creators.

The logic? Social media influencers often have access to communities that news outlets don’t — including many people who don’t follow politics. Plus, influencers’ credibility with their audiences means that if you can get them to publicly support you, you’ll also get the people they reach. 

Except as it turns out, and as Swalwell just learned, influencers have also become important in bringing politicians down.

Mrs. Frazzled Enters the Picture 

One of the content creators on that conference call with Swalwell was Arielle Fodor, who is known for her satirical “gentle parenting” videos published under the handle “Mrs. Frazzled.” Fodor, a former kindergarten teacher, also has a Substack about education policy. 

After the conference call, Fodor posted an enthusiastic Instagram Story: “You know how I love to meet a politician who acts like a normal human and is not a robot! Eric is that. Very impressed by his policy stuff as well.”

Almost immediately, she began receiving private warnings from her followers to avoid the man, not because they were looking for a scandal, but because they were concerned about Fodor’s safety. “I got messages saying, ‘Do not talk to that man. You just don’t want to get involved,” Fodor said in a recent Instagram video.

In a way, that’s not surprising, given the bonds (technically known as “parasocial relationships”) that can develop between influencers and their followers. Though these relationships tend to be one-sided, they can sometimes feel as deep as IRL friendships. Indeed, Fodor’s followers felt safe enough with her that they began telling her about their experiences with Swalwell.

“Every week, I was hearing from more and more people, friends of mine who’d had encounters with him, interns he slept with, stuff that had happened years and years ago, and stuff that had happened recently,” she said in a video.

The stories didn’t strike Fodor as simple gossip about a powerful man cheating on a spouse. They sounded, to her, like abuse of power. Fodor reached out for second opinions from people she knew in politics, who confirmed what she’d heard, and so she began hinting at the issue in posts on Threads in February and March, though without naming Swalwell explicitly.

According to Politico, Fodor’s posts got the notice of Swalwell’s campaign manager, who texted her and tried to wave off the rumors. Instead of retreating, Fodor decided to out the congressman by name. 

A Second Influencer Gets Involved

Shortly after that, amid the rising swirl of comments and messages about what Fodor had posted, Cheyenne Hunt, an influencer and California lawyer, heard from a friend who confided that the congressman had inappropriately approached her, too, when she was 19, and urged Hunt to use her large online following to let people know about Swalwell’s behavior. On March 31, Hunt posted a detailed denunciation. 

Fodor and Hunt began collaborating, encouraging more women to come forward. Barely two weeks later, major media outlets reported on the women’s claims, and the one-time Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner announced that he was dropping out of the governor’s race. The next day, Swalwell quit Congress, too, taking to X to apologize for “mistakes in judgment,” but also saying that he would “fight” the “serious, false allegation made against me.”

Ro Khanna, the California congressman who sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, has since given credit to Fodor and Hunt for “taking a lot of risk and having the courage to create a space for survivors to speak out.”

What a difference a few posts and DMs can make.

The story of how two influencers helped trigger the fall of a prominent politician is a story about who gets to decide what’s newsworthy, who gets heard and who is believed. It also highlights how the trust content creators build with their audiences helps information come to light that might otherwise remain buried. 

Case in point: Despite the fact that Swalwell’s alleged behavior was apparently so well known in D.C. that politicians kept him away from their young staffers, it was influencers, not the mainstream media, who set the story in motion. Why?

Building a Deeper, Different Kind of Trust 

Of course, there’s nothing like the power of a team of reporters with the budget to uncover stories that fell the rich and powerful, but the burden of proof required by trustworthy journalism can slow things down. While social media is certainly no replacement for carefully corroborated reporting, content creators are often willing to move faster than litigation-wary news outlets.

There was something else, too. 

Historically, survivors have resisted speaking when approached by the media, fearing it would destroy their lives or careers. But with the content creators, the dynamic flipped — it was the survivors who reached out to Fodor and Hunt, not the other way around.

When they saw the influencers’ posts, these women realized their experiences with Swalwell weren’t one-offs. And they trusted Fodor and Hunt enough to tell them their stories. So when enough women came forward, the dam broke. There was safety in numbers.

That’s when the creators began privately directing the women to mainstream news outlets, according to a Politico story this week, while publicly promising their followers that a group of women were about to tell their stories.

But it wasn’t until two days after Hunt posted her second video (and two weeks after Fodor’s initial post) that the mainstream media began covering the story. California’s San Joaquin Valley Sun published a simple summary of Hunt’s allegations on April 6 (as did the right-wing Daily Caller).

Four days later, full-on investigations appeared in CNN, in which the women Fodor and Hunt and spoken with were interviewed; as well as the San Francisco Chronicle. The next day, the Manhattan District Attorney opened an investigation. More investigations have followed. 

Ultimately, the Swalwell story and the way it broke illustrates how content creators can play a role in surfacing this kind of news, largely because the dynamic between them and their followers is materially different than the one between journalists and their sources. 

Fodor and Hunt went beyond just telling women’s stories. Their interest in the women was personal, and they understood the risks, so they put a pro-bono lawyer in place to defend against any lawsuits they might face. They also set up networks to ensure that women who faced retaliation would still be able to find jobs in politics.

“These women needed to know that if they came forward, there was a group of people who would have their back,” Hunt said. 

So while it once required Pulitzer-caliber journalists to end the career of someone like Swalwell, in the ever-evolving world of social media, women who normally post funny and engaging videos can now get that ball rolling.

“I think we just prevented another 30 to 40 years, potentially, of [Swalwell] harming people," one of his accusers told CBS. “In that sense, I think we have served justice for his future victims, [who] won’t exist anymore.”