March 9, 2022

On Entitlement

So SOMEBODY is currently making the rounds hoping that his reputation can now be fully rehabilitated, especially after the sexual assault charges against him that (temporarily) derailed his political career back in 2018 have fallen apart. And fair enough. But as someone who has read his terrible autobiography (which is the worst typeset document in the history of documents), I would like to underline that the specific assault charges, to some of us, were never the point. Instead, it was a question of character. The entitlement of a guy who launches his political career with a case of beer at his elite all-boys private high school, who builds a political career with a strategy of unseating female incumbents, who has the fucking audacity to vote to reopen the abortion debate and court the family values crowd—all the while he’s in his thirties and having relationships with women just out of their twenties who work in his office. One of whom he’s now married to, whose secret relationship he only admitted to on the night in 2018 when his whole career came crashing down and suddenly it seemed opportune to be a man with a partner. Who’d be exasperating enough if he were only one guy, except that he’s emblematic of so many mediocre men in positions of leadership who have no idea how irresponsible and reckless it is that they get to have so much power over ordinary people’s lives.

So this is why I don’t feel sorry for Patrick Brown, and that so many people do only underlines the power of “himpathy” (read Kate Manne’s book), and I’ll tell you again that his is the natural trajectory of the men whose “lives are destroyed!” in #MeToo style takedowns, and, finally, if you want to know more about my thoughts on the subject, go read my novel, Waiting for a Star to Fall.