The lines have been blurred as to how adults conduct themselves around children because adults are allowed to behave like petulant children while expecting the children to comprehend like adults.
Through the prism of adult interests, we rationalize what we expose children to. With the addition of political animosity, we make excuses for harmful adult conduct, even at the expense of the most innocent.
Recently, Vice President JD Vance visited California, where he was accompanied by his wife and children, including a trip to Disneyland. Despite this obvious family trip, he was targeted by protesters and parkgoers with constant booing and tongue lashings.
Jane Flemming Kleeb, a Democratic National Committee Vice Chair, filmed herself in the park verbally antagonizing JD Vance as he walked by with his child in his arms.
"We support immigrants, we support America!" Kleeb shouted. Without a response from Vice President Vance, she sarcastically yelled, "I thought California was violent!"
However, it goes beyond some boo birds in the crowd and an overzealous political chairwoman who holds a pointless position for a political party.
The left-wing media apparatus sees this type of conduct as not just heroic but necessary for his children to witness.
Clara Jeffery, Mother Jones Editor-In-Chief, wrote on Bluesky, "People who feel bad for JD Vance's kids as family gets booed at Disneyland. I get it, but better those kids know now what their father is about. Other kids are watching their parents get shipped off to gulags."
Michael Hobbes, former HuffPost reporter, wrote on Bluesky, "This is gonna sound snarky but if your dad is a piece of sh*t it's better to realize it sooner rather than later."
When I started following politics back when George W. Bush was in office, I recall the phrase "Children are off-limits."
This phrase was stated by members of the media who recognized that, even though they might despise a particular politician, their children and private life were off-limits to ridicule.
It was an unwritten rule that criticizing the children of politicians was considered beneath the belt, and if you violated it, you were rightly ridiculed. However, this phrase wasn't just about attacking your nemesis' children, but general conduct around their children.
There might be outliers, but it was typically seen as deplorable behavior if a mainstream media outlet or rival politician used a politician's time with their children as an opportunity to throw verbal daggers.
It was because we understood that our disagreements are adult matters, and our children, regardless of who their parents are, should be shielded from our differences. Every child should have as many opportunities to enjoy their time with their parents as the rest of us.
But since Trump has entered the political sphere, those unwritten rules have been effectively discarded, and anyone attached to the Trump brand deserves the ire from the people who hate Trump the most.
The loudest and most obnoxious radical left-wing voices in the media are now acting as the pulse of the Democratic party, leaving traditional decorum between political adversaries in rigor mortis.
And all of this is foreseeable because the most ideological on the left understand that all social norms must be deconstructed, including what children should or should not be exposed to.
It's why they're fine with what used to be considered "adult content" being permissible in front of children, since even the phrase "adult content" is a social construct that can be either upheld or knocked down with a sledgehammer.
It's not enough that members of the media not only take pleasure in ridiculing a politician, even with his children being held in his arms, but they must rationalize it by saying that unaware children have to know that there are people who hate the man who created them.
To these people, there are no lines that can be crossed, just as there are no social constructs that can't be torn down. Decorum is a weakness if the objective is annihilation at all costs.
Their target was JD Vance, but they don't care if his children get caught in the political crossfire in the process.
