Since 2010, at least 70 prominent Bay Area men have faced allegations of sexual misconduct — ranging from harassment to rape. And if you're wondering what consequences they faced, the answer, overwhelmingly, is: not much.

Most of them have quietly returned to the highest echelons of public life. Corner offices, board seats, political influence, fundraising circuits — the machinery of Bay Area power barely hiccupped. Some issued carefully lawyered non-apology apologies. Others simply waited out the news cycle. A few disappeared from the headlines just long enough for everyone to move on.

This is, fundamentally, an accountability problem. And accountability is supposed to be what institutions — courts, HR departments, regulatory bodies, elected oversight — exist to provide. Instead, what we see is a system that processes allegations like background noise. One local resident put it well: "So many of the quotes from the men accused show they are simply delusional and still in denial. A lot of them truly don't believe their conduct was wrong or non-consensual. Which is a huge problem in itself."

The institutional response has been almost comically performative. As one SF resident noted, in at least one case, "all employees were newly required to attend in-person sexual harassment prevention trainings. But no word as to whether the accused, still employed, was also required to attend." That's not accountability. That's theater.

Here's where we'll be blunt: this isn't a left-right issue. Bad actors exist across the political spectrum, and the Bay Area's progressive bona fides haven't done a thing to fix this. The region loves to lecture the rest of the country about justice and equity while its own powerful class operates with near-total impunity. The scope of the problem is staggering — clergy weren't even included in the tally because, as the reporting noted, "there are too many."

Liberty-minded people should care deeply about this. Individual rights mean nothing if institutions meant to protect them are captured by the very people abusing their power. When the powerful face no consequences, it's not just a failure of morality — it's a failure of governance. The Bay Area has spent billions building bureaucracies that claim to protect the vulnerable. Maybe it's time to ask why those bureaucracies keep protecting the powerful instead.