Kash Patel Finds Out The Hard Way
As the news and screenshots of the lawsuit spread on social media, there was a whole lot of huffing and puffing from various right-wing influencers.
Welcome back to Mr. Right, a newsletter about navigating modern manhood for normal guys in a not-normal world. First off, wishing a belated Happy Veterans Day to all who have served or whose loved ones may have served this country. Thank you. This week, we discuss Kash Patel and his relationship with a 27-year-old country singer and influencer, and why November is the most underrated month of the year.
Kash Patel Finds Out The Hard Way
This week, FBI Director Kash Patel is finding out the hard way.
Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, is a 27-year-old conservative country singer and influencer. She is currently suing a right-wing influencer after he insinuated that she was a Mossad “honeypot” planted by Israel to control her powerful boyfriend.
(Note: these claims are baseless.)
As the news and screenshots of the lawsuit spread on social media, there was a whole lot of huffing and puffing from various right-wing influencers. And some of it was actually hilarious.
I don’t want to discuss the lawsuit, the political and free speech implications, or whether it is even justified for Wilkins to pursue legal action. (Briefly, though: did they not realize that texts between Wilkins and Kash can be later revealed through discovery?) Other people will debate those issues, and that’s totally fine. But there’s something else here, a cautionary tale as old as time lingering under the surface: blowing up one’s life and work over a woman.
Now, I’m not saying Kash has fully blown up his career. Not yet, at least. I’m simply here to point out that many a man through history have been ruined by an unstable relationship with a woman, usually a woman much, much younger than him. (RELATED: As Fireworks Exploded, People Were Fascinated By Kash Patel’s Tie)
Kash is 45 years old; Wilkins is 27. He’s one of the most powerful people in government; she’s a country singer/influencer. This dynamic has already created headaches for both of them, as is evident in the lawsuit and the online denizens attacking them. He has a very important duty to his country.
Imagine, for a moment, an alternate universe in which Kash married someone roughly his own age, had a couple of kids, and was still the FBI director. Don’t you think there would be much more stability within the relationship? Don’t you think that he would be better off in general with a loving family life and a supportive, mature wife? Don’t you think his work at the bureau would be more methodical, more driven?
I seriously wonder if Kash ever gets distracted by the fact that Wilkins is off singing at random concerts, surrounded by men her own age, or if he ever gets jealous and insecure about this. I’m sure he does. He’s human.
Kash, of course, is free to do as he pleases. And clearly, he sacrificed a lot in his personal life, perhaps even potential chances at marriage, to ascend the ladder of power in Washington, D.C.
However, there is a steep cost to an age-gap relationship, especially when that relationship is so public, due to your very public-facing job: it can breed chaos and dysfunction. Not to be a nerd, but I am reminded of a great quote, popularized in Game of Thrones: “Love is the death of duty; duty is the death of love.”
In the curious case of Kash Patel and Alexis Wilkins, I think this quote is quite apt.
He Has A Point: The Greatness Of November
Once again, this week’s He Has A Point goes to the excellent and inimitable O.W. Root, for his contrarian take on the month of November.
“November may be the most underrated month of the year,” writes Root. “I finally understand this after all these years. The air is cold and refreshing. Crisp and clean.
But it’s not snowy; it’s not winter. The leaves are all but gone, the branches are bare. The clouds are different when they are there, and the bare sky looks a certain way when they are not.”
Root happens to live in the great north of Michigan, so if you’re like me and live a little further south, you might still be seeing leaves on the trees, and the weather may not be as frigid. But November is nevertheless a slept-on month, even if you live in Florida.
We always associate it with Thanksgiving, but the weeks leading up to the holiday are no less wonderful. Fall fully sets in. You start to smell wood-burning fires in the neighborhood. The excitement of the holiday season begins to hit harder. The anticipation builds. You start to see Christmas lights strung up here and there.
People love October because of pumpkins, pumpkin-flavored foods and drinks, and Halloween, of course. But November feels like deep fall, a time when, as Root observes, “the world feels abandoned.” It does feel abandoned, but in the best possible way: a peaceful, charming way. Life slows down (at least until the chaos of Thanksgiving and holiday travel).
As is usual, Root has a point.
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