I’m not entirely at ease with the characterization of this as them doing it performatively, or as part of a narrative. Everything nowadays is slavishly reduced to “optics” and agendas.
I will equivocate though; Swalwell’s reaction here is effective because it mirrors the reaction many of us have had to the dark turns of our friends and loved ones in recent years. This madness has frayed our social fabric, maybe irreparably.