A sharp take on the Lindsay Clancy case and how it exposed a cultural double standard: some women rallied around Clancy while many men found that reaction a relationship dealbreaker, sparking breakups and loud conversations about values, safety, and accountability.

I keep thinking of the line from the 1997 film “As Good As It Gets”: “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.” That line fits the reaction some people have had to the Lindsay Clancy trial, where emotion has drowned out basic judgment. When people excuse or cheer for someone who admitted to killing their children, it raises a lot of red flags about priorities and standards.

There has been a lot of fawning from certain corners, and that worship tells us more about those admirers than about the accused. Some commentators and influencers have framed this as empathy or nuance, but to many it looks like moral confusion. Men watching those reactions decided they did not want that kind of sympathy in their lives.

It’s not a mystery why. Many of the women defending or relating to Clancy align with leftist ideas and public figures who have long eroded traditional expectations of male and female roles. Bill Clinton. Eric Swalwell. Graham Platner. Ruben Gallego. Those names are not a recruiting poster for stability, so it is easy to see why men would recoil. If your social circle elevates or excuses the indefensible, you’re free to leave.

Men have a right to feel safe and to demand basic alignment on core values from a partner. The defense has never claimed Clancy was innocent, and Clancy herself admitted she did it. The practical question facing observers and jurors was whether she would spend the rest of her life in prison or be treated as someone needing psychiatric confinement instead of prison.

When women once joked they’d rather sit with a bear than be with certain men, that was a symptom of something deeper: a rejection of the kinds of men they saw in politics and culture. Now, when men reject partners who say they “relate” to a mother who killed her children, those same defenders complain. “Yas, queen!” turns out to have limits when the shoe is on the other foot.

The post reads:

Letting outside views and opinions dictate to you how to view your partner- is the peak of weak, my friend.

If you did not have conversation with her first, to understand what exactly she supports and relates to, than congratulations- you got duped and played.

Men need to know how to communicate and understand their partners without other men telling them what to think and do.

https://x.com/avpk11/status/2092995924641661347?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

So, y’all just messed up a lot of relationship. But they were doomed anyways, right? Because who the hell listens to online influencers about what they should do in/with their relationship?!

Turns out men are more likely than women to say they want to be parents one day, according to Pew, and that matters here. Men tend to think like providers and protectors, and they won’t sign up for a lifetime with someone who celebrates or excuses violence against children. Small disagreements over steaks or Netflix are survivable, but celebrating child murder is a nonstarter for most people.

Those men communicated clearly with their girlfriends and fiancées and found Clancy’s reaction a dealbreaker. There is no acceptable answer to a question about Clancy besides she’s a monster and deserves to be locked up for the rest of her life. Nuance on that is not courage; it’s moral surrender.

Some will argue mental illness explains everything, and if she were in the throes of a genuine psychotic break I’d offer limited sympathy. But I remain skeptical that her actions are excused by a single, unassailable episode. Ultimately, she was an adult with agency, and she made all the choices that led to that terrible day in January 2023.

One child was five, one was three, and the baby was eight months old—those facts shouldn’t be up for debate. Men who walk away from partners who “relate” to that kind of person are trying to avoid living through the same pain as Patrick Clancy did. And I don’t blame them one bit.