‘Trump derangement syndrome’: WSJ laments anti-MAGA trend in California’s governor race

President Donald Trump is wildly unpopular in states like California — and in a recent editorial, The Wall Street Journal’s Allysia Finley complained that California’s next governor may be selected accordingly.

“Trump derangement syndrome helps explain why Bay Area Rep. Eric Swalwell has become the favorite in the race to succeed Mr. Newsom this November,” Finley complained. “In California’s June 2 jungle primary, all candidates compete on the same ballot, and the top two finishers face off in November.”

After reviewing the tight nature of the race, Finley speculated that Swalwell is ahead because of his high profile criticisms of Trump. For example, when Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) endorsed him, he did so by saying that he “worked closely with Eric when we needed to investigate Donald Trump in his first term.”

“Mr. Swalwell elevated himself in Democratic ranks when he served as a House impeachment manager in Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial, after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot,” Finley added. “The congressman gained a social-media following by producing cheeky videos during the 2024 campaign that mocked Mr. Trump. He has staked his campaign for governor on fighting the president, a cause that unites Democrats and many independents.”

From there Finley called Swalwell “callow,” claiming that he “doesn’t talk much about policies, except with broad liberal brushstrokes” and characterizing him as a generic tax-and-spend liberal. Swalwell’s campaign website, by contrast, includes many specific policy proposals. Part of his platform does indeed directly address Trump’s policies, such as his pledges to block Trump administration policies on immigration, healthcare, and the environment, he has also proposed very specific policies that the Journal editorial did not address in detail.

Yet he has also proposed policies that do not directly involve Trump such as declaring a statewide housing emergency and a tax holiday for small businesses, passing a Corporate Fairness Tax to reward companies with equitable pay structures, disposing of wood in ways less likely to cause forest fires and shifting climate-disaster insurance costs to corporate polluters and end utility monopoly markups. He has also offered complex plans to modernize state government by overhauling its outdated grid and establishing a unified digital platform for the state’s myriad government services.

"Assailing Mr. Trump is a tried-and-true campaign strategy for Democrats, but it isn’t a successful governing strategy,” the Journal’s Finley concluded. “What will it take for California voters to figure that out?"

Swalwell has indeed been an outspoken critic of Trump, most recently in January when he vocally condemned his Republican colleagues for praising Trump publicly while bashing him in private.

"These guys are so lucky that they are not under oath because they would have to tell you what they really think of Trump," Swalwall said during one hearing into Trump’s alleged illegal activities. "They call him crooked. They called him cruel. They called him a scumbag. I’ve heard you all say it.”

In October, Swalwell also posted on his X account that many of his colleagues were more disgusted with Trump’s links with convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein than they let on.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA)'s Tuesday morning social media post teasing a big bombshell related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has sent the internet into a frenzy.

"It’s coming to an end guys," Swalwell wrote on his X account. "I’ve spoken to a lot of House Republicans this week and they’ve confided that Trump’s movement/support is fading. As one told me, 'this Epstein bomb is about to drop ... It’s just a matter of time.'"

Speaking to this author for Salon Magazine about surviving Trump’s January 6th coup attempt, Swalwell again commented on the disconnect between what his Republican colleagues say privately and what they say publicly.

“As I bumped into people who were at the [Trump] rally or who had also propagated the Big Lie, I thought, ‘How strange is it that we both are running for our lives?'” Swalwell recalled. “It made me think, maybe this is an opening. Maybe this will be what it takes for us to come together, that we find ourselves running for our lives, and we’re going to the same secure location. Maybe this will bring us together and maybe this will be an inflection point for them to break away from Trump.”

Later describing his reaction as “naive and Pollyanna-ish,” Swalwell admitted that when he “saw the fear” on the faces of Republican colleagues, he hopes “this would bring us all together to condemn Donald Trump … we’d finally recognize that unity would be the antidote to make sure it never happened again.”

Later he concluded that “I serve with people who don’t have the imagination to see themselves doing any other job besides Congress. They don’t have the confidence to believe that they could get a job other than Congress, so they do anything they can to stay in their jobs, which right now means you have to support Donald Trump and anything he says.”

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