The US congressman, in today’s news because his pointed criticisms of Our Overlord Grabpussy have netted him a retributive charge of mortgage fraud, but I was about to post about him as an exemplar of liberal political critique (along with, among others, Rachel Maddow, Pete Buttigieg, and Joyce Vance) and also of nice-guy masculinity (masculinity being one of my perennial topics), with a note on a presentation of himself that employs both informal dress and facial scruff — the latter being a conventional advertisement of masculinity and toughness.
Background.From Wikipedia:
Eric Michael Swalwell (born November 16, 1980) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative from California’s 14th congressional district since 2023, having previously represented the 15th district from 2013 to 2023. His district covers most of eastern Alameda County and part of central Contra Costa County. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
… Swalwell has called for greater authenticity from politicians, saying that they should not insult each other publicly and then expect to have friendly relationships “backstage”, and comparing some politicians’ behavior to a fake, entertainment-focused professional wrestling show.
I include that last bit of information because it conveys something of his character; he combines the earnestness of an eagle scout with progressive political positions pretty much right down the line, in a nice-guy empathetic presentation of himself leavened with humor, even self-mockery.
ES and Rachel Maddow play off nicely against one another, and they have the opportunity to joke about his being her congressman; his current district covers Castro Valley (in Alameda County), where RM (born 1973) grew up and went to high school (lettering in three sports, as she likes to point out). Then they get on to the tough stuff.
ES’s physical presentation of himself. ES is physically highly masculine, with a square jaw and athlete’s neck muscles. Here he is in an atyical scowl, with light scruff, and in conservative coat and tie:
(#1) (photo: Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images file)
His usual presentation is much less pugnacious; his typical facial expression at rest is a spread-lip half-smile. with smiling eyes, and he’s inclined to informal dress, with open-neck light-colored sport shirts — projecting not power, but amiability and identification with ordinary people (he is genuinely from the working class):
(#2) Standard average ES (one of his own PR photos)
I am not saying that this presentation is calculated; he chooses how to groom and what to wear and how to act, and he might get advice on these matters from his staff, but he probably just does what suits him, without thinking about the details or articulating what they might convey or what his aims are. I remind you that the Beatles as a group deployed half-rhyme to great effect in their lyrics, but in fact just chose words that sounded right to them (without a clue about the phonological effects they were manipulating).
Facial scruff. In recent years he’s added significant facial scruff to the ensemble, as here:
(#3) Scruff, and also a shirt open further down, showing a bit of his hairy chest; amiable, but dead-serious, manliness (again, one of his own PR photos)
How to be hot and deeply earnest, all at once.
There is a Page on this blog with links to my postings on facial scruff as a sexual symbol, advertising masculinity and toughness. Conventional associations in (at least) modern American society. Not the only association; facial scruff is, as I like to say, just stuff, not meaningful in itself, but capable of being associated with many different meanings and social values, depending on the context.
[Note on the Page. My Pages, which link to blog postings with various bits of content in them, are current only up to about three years ago, when I no longer had the time to add entries. For each posting I do, updating all the relevant pages takes an hour or two, and as the demands on my time increased, I had to be content with just finishing a posting. The watchword is: do what you can; something small is better than nothing at all. I’m trying to take my own advice to heart, but here I am, apologizing anyway. But I did write this posting.]
November 15, 2025 at 7:11 am |
You describe #1 as being “clean-shaven”, but I definitely detect scruff in that image.
November 15, 2025 at 9:53 am |
Yes, and I’ve changed the description. Square-jawed masculinity was the point of the first photo, but it turns out to be fairly recent, so it has some scruff.
I haven’t gone back to discover when the scruff first appears. The coat and tie go on and off according to the occasion.