I'm Disgusted But Not Terribly Surprised By How Many People Are Defending Russell Brand on Twitter
a bunch of creeps, that’s who!
Because I am a masochist, I still check in on what I will always call Twitter to see just how bad things have gotten. Twitter was always a dodgy waste of time but since Elon Musk took over it’s become something sinister, sad and wrong.
Russell Brand has been trending for much of the past week. But it’s not because people are disgusted by the crimes he’s being credibly accused of committing. The opposite, unfortunately, but predictably, is true.
Twitter has become an unofficial Russell Brand fan site. It’s filled with defenders, fans and apologists who are filled with rage not because a powerful man abused that power to hurt vulnerable women but rather because they believe Brand is the latest holy martyr being crucified by the Woke Mob and Cancel Culture police because he was asking too many questions and getting too close to provocative, explosive truths Biden and the rest of his Communist cohorts want hidden.
I am surprised and horrified by how many people are vigorously defending Brand on Twitter. I should not be. Being credibly accused of multiple acts of sexual assault should not be a political issue. But it is. It’s a political issue because Republicans tend to see everyone on their side as innocent victims being persecuted relentlessly by the Communist Woke Cancel Culture crowd for not going along with their insane extremist agenda.
Organizations takes their cues from their leaders and Elon Musk on September 17th tweeted, “I support Russell Brand. That man is not evil.” He also stated that Brand was being accused of unspeakable crimes because the mainstream media “don’t like competition.” Musk later got a little miffed at Brand, however, not because of the sexual assault allegations but rather because Brand was broadcasting on rival right-wing social media site Rumble rather than Twitter.
The defenses of Brand on Twitter fall into three categories with an awful lot of overlap. They are, in order:
Brand was questioning and challenging powerful institutions and the mainstream media in a way that they found threatening so they unleashed what Brand refers to as a “coordinated attack” on him in an effort to silence him and the explosive truths he’s uncovering.
Brand has been found guilty and is being punished throughout the pop culture sphere even though he has not been charged with any criminal offenses, undergone a trial or been found guilty.
Defenders interacted with Brand at some point and he didn’t rape them, or anyone they know, so he must not be a rapist.
The first rationale is self-aggrandizing bullshit that wildly overestimates Brand’s power and influence. The second is similarly disingenuous but for different reasons.
There are many reasons why women who have been sexually assaulted by powerful men wouldn’t immediately go to the police and file charges against the men who raped them.
For starters, rape is incredibly traumatic. So is the aftermath of rape. A rape victim who tries to hold their abuser accountable in the legal system has to relive the worst, most agonizing moments of their life over and over again, to doctors and lawyers and juries and the press.
They also face a viciously misogynistic world that assumes that powerful men accused of crimes are victims of cancel culture but that the women bringing charges are liars and opportunists who want money and attention.
They must also find a way to navigate a complicated, swampy legal system where it is very hard to convict a man of rape even if he is clearly guilty for any number of reasons. So even if a rape victim does take a rape kit and reports her rapist to the police and pursues criminal charges there’s still a very good chance that at the end of the trial the rapist will walk free.
I can’t even imagine how agonizing that would be. Why risk that torture when it might not lead to anything other than your name and reputation being attacked?
The belief that people should not face negative consequences for their actions unless they are tried by a jury and found guilty wildly overestimates the effectiveness, speed and efficiency of our legal system.
By that standard O.J Simpson should have been able to land more acting and broadcasting gigs after that whole kerfuffle with his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman because he was tried in a court of law and found innocent. R. Kelly similarly shouldn’t have faced negative consequences after his child pornography trial because he was also found not guilty.
The horrifying thing is that Kelly really didn’t face negative consequences for his underage rape cult until MeToo shone a harsh light on his crimes.
Despite what the courts ruled we all know that Kelly and Simpson were guilty. There was simply too much evidence , just as there is a preponderance of evidence that Brand has similarly committed sex crimes.
Arguing that famous people shouldn’t face negative consequences for their actions until they’re found guilty in a court of law is an incredibly high bar to clear that could also take years, even decades.
It’s not the same with progressives. When Democratic New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez was charged with bribery Democrats didn’t rally around him and insist that everyone hold off judgment until he was convicted in a court of law.
No, Democrats like myself thought he seemed guilty as hell and consequently should resign immediately. We similarly didn’t buy his bullshit claim that he was being persecuted unfairly because he was Hispanic. That dude is a corrupt and should go to jail in addition to leaving politics forever.
See? It’s not that hard to hold people accountable for their sins even if you agree with them politically but I’m not sure the right will ever learn that lesson.
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