Vice President JD Vance and his daughter were surrounded over the weekend by pro-Ukrainian protesters who forced him into dealing with them by terrifying his daughter. Even after he started engaging with them, they shouted him down. These protesters should not have been permitted by Secret Service to get that close to him and to freak out his daughter. It's no wonder, however, that this was their game plan after hearing from leading Democrats that taking the "resistance" directly to the elected leaders is what protesters should do.
Your eyes don't deceive you. Vance was set upon by a mob of pro-Ukrainian protesters who began to yell at his 3-year-old daughter and frighten her until Vance agreed to give them a few minutes to talk. Video exists which confirms Vance's account. In that video, Vance is nothing but polite to the protesters, yet they continue to interrupt him, insult him, and have no concern for the little girl.
Now, we could point out any number of things about these protesters: for instance, the fact that most of them were visibly greying just as much as their sixties-era tactics, or that the instant Vance started to make a good point, one of the shrieking Karens would try to derail the conversation with #Resistance gobbledygook. We could, but frankly, the fact of JD Vance being accosted by the escaped inmates of a nursing home for understudies of the Weather Underground is less interesting than the simple fact that the protesters in question extorted Vance's time by frightening his child. We may be behind the times, but last we checked, children – particularly small children – were supposed to be off-limits.
No matter how anyone feels about Ukraine, or immigration, or Israel, or any other place in the world, there must be decorum and civility when dealing with the innocent offspring of elected leaders' children. Yelling, harassment and intimidation have no place in the world of a 3-year-old girl. We used to know this.
As recently as 11 years ago, in fact, the norm of "leave the kids alone" was so ironclad that it cost at least one Congressional staffer her job. Elizabeth Lauten, communications director for then-Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN), resigned from her post after scolding then-President Barack Obama's daughters Sasha and Malia for their clothing and attitude during the 2014 White House turkey pardoning ceremony.
"Try showing a little class," Lauten snarked on Twitter. "Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at the bar. And certainly don't make faces during televised, public events." Lauten was forced to apologize before resigning her post, and a mini-media firestorm ensued. No less an entity than Sean Spicer, then communications director for the Republican National Committee, condemned her.
Lauten's attempt to scold Sasha and Malia Obama was petty, silly, and small. Not to mention, it was the exact kind of thing that used to make people think Republicans were unfun, uptight jerks. But having said that, let's be clear: Lauten's attack on the first daughters took place on Twitter. She did not accost them in the street and cause safety concerns. What's more, the girls in question were 13 and 16 at the time, not 3-years-old. Now, granted, there are other cases of presidential children being granted something less than privacy by the media and political opponents, and granted, those doing the protesting would no doubt object that children are in danger in Ukraine so long as Vance's policy persists. But so far as we can tell, there has never been a case of a toddler being mobbed by the opposition as Vance's daughter was, and however much the protesters may believe they possess moral authority, we believe there is a reason that this particular shameful episode is sui generis and, in a sane world, would stay that way.
Many may not remember the dustup over Elizabeth Lauten, after all, but we would hope they remember the incident at the end of last October when an apparent Harris supporter was caught on-camera screaming at a baby in a stroller. That incident rightly became symbolic of how unhinged Harris' support base was, and damaged her by proxy. As such, even if your only concern is the effectiveness of protest, then accosting children, even when they are accompanied by their famous parents, is the height of foolishness. Whatever benefit you might gain from forcing their parents to talk to you (with talking points that have been well-honed for all audiences), you will more than lose due to the unsympathetic response such behavior will engender among the general public. This is not moralizing, but simple political common sense.
And you know what? We're sure there are many Democratic strategists, pundits, and politicians who would've happily told these protesters exactly that. Perhaps some even did. The trouble is that given the current state of the Democratic party, such warnings clearly will go in one ear and out the other.
Why? Well, quite simply, because Democrats still have not processed that the moral order they created to protect themselves from the consequences of their own actions is dead. That order, which has existed at least since the 1960's, operated on a very simple premise: the idea that those in power would always be liberals who, having been protesters and radicals themselves once, would do everything in their power to minimize the public's knowledge of liberal extremism. This was assumed to be true even when Republicans were in power, seeing as previous generations of Republican leaders have consistently genuflected to the moral code of liberals – if not their preferred policies – and thus reinforced the idea that the screaming protesters may be fools, but they are at least holy fools.
Since the 2024 election, however, none of that is the case. In fact, thanks to President Trump's administration, every single institution which upheld that old implicitly liberal consensus is now either dead or under siege. And Vice President Vance, who speaks for a younger generation incensed by the failures of the old consensus (and of the old generally) to secure and protect their futures, has absolutely no reason to genuflect toward one letter of what these protesters say. Which means that now, finally, America sees them for the screeching revenants they are. The protesters, however, will learn nothing from that, because since they were young, they have been taught that screaming louder, even at sympathetic targets like children, is how to get their way.
Which means that this little incident with JD Vance's daughter is more than simply an embarrassing public political faux pas. It is a symbol, especially given the greying, Joe Bidenesque ages of many of the protesters involved: a symbol of a politics long in the tooth, but short in the credibility, which, having betrayed the next generations, now finds itself screaming impotently at them for failing to accept its premises. It is a symbol of brats grown older but not wiser being felled by the protectiveness of a father for whom a child is not simply a means to mirror his own desires (unlike, for instance, the children of these people). And frankly, if the goal of these protesters was actually to save the lives of Ukrainian children, that is the worst symbol imaginable for them to project, because in that symbol, America sees the truth of who they are: preening moral narcissists hiding behind support for sympathetic targets in order to justify their own emotional incontinence. Which is why we are quite sure that the average Ukrainian takes one look at incidents like this, and can only mutter, "please stop helping."
But of course, the Left won't stop 'helping.' And nor will Americans stop recoiling from their tactics. However, we do hope that the Secret Service will be well-prepared going forward. If these overgrown red diaper brats are willing to scream at toddlers to get their way, who knows what else they will do under the false impression that consequences are things that happen to people who aren't down with their permanent, Peter Pan-style revolution?
