(AP Photo)
There are reasons why I have trouble taking conservatives seriously.
Case in point: Bethany Mandel.
Last week, Mandel saw fit to take a dig at Vice-President Kamala Harris in the New York Post for not giving Vice-President-elect JD Vance a tour of the VP residence:
One would think that a woman who campaigned on decency under the self-appointed moniker “Momala” would behave like it.
This is the Vance children’s first introduction to life in Washington — and, unfortunately, it’s an entirely on-brand representation of the personal, partisan small-mindedness we often see in the nation’s capital.
Harris’ pettiness with the Vance family is emblematic of a woman who prides herself on empathy but practices little of it when faced with her political opponents.
Even the small children of her political opponents.
Her behavior in this instance is a microcosm of why she lost: The American people saw through her act.
Kamala was never going to bring a kinder, gentler, more caring shift to our political landscape.
She is a vindictive political operator, and we’re all better off with her moving truck headed back to California rather than down Massachusetts Avenue to the White House.
While one could argue that Harris ought to have shown Vance and his family the VP residence, it is hard for me to take Mandel's argument with any degree of seriousness. Did Donald Trump welcome Joe Biden into the White House? No, Trump claimed he didn't lose and tried to prevent Biden from assuming his rightful place in the White House. Thus, Mandel's admonition rings hollow.
If Mandel thinks Harris is "a vindictive political operator" who was "never going to bring a kinder, gentler, more caring shift to our political landscape" then what does that make Trump?
After all, Mandel speaks of Vance's children and yet Trump is out to embark upon a program of stripping the American citizenship of hundreds of thousands of children and forcibly evicting them from the only country they've ever known. Seems pretty vindictive to me. Then again Mandel seems to have some strange notion of what it is to be kind and gentle.
Mandel praises Vance's behavior with his children:
JD and Usha Vance’s children are 7, 4 and 2. They’ve grown up down the block from extended family in Ohio and just endured an unsettling six months as their father shuttled around the country campaigning.
Before that, their dad had to split his time between their Ohio home and Washington while serving as a US senator.
It has surely been a struggle for these young parents to maintain their children’s sense of stability amid so much uncertainty and stress.
They’ve done so admirably. Throughout the campaign, Vance was often photographed with one or another of the kids as they shared activities like baking biscuits and playing outside Mar-a-Lago, the home of his running mate.
His commitment to his kids was visible and endearing.
Mandel must have missed Vance bragging about telling his 7-year-old son Ewan to "shut the hell up" while he was on the phone with Trump. Somehow, I doubt it was the first time he used such language towards his children.
Indeed, during the campaign, Vance also made a point of telling Harris to "go to hell" and called her "trash". It could explain why Harris was disinclined towards giving Vance and his family a tour. Needless to say, Mandel omitted any mention of these incidents.
In less than 24 hours from now, Vance officially becomes Vice-President under a second Trump Administration. If the Bethany Mandels of the world were insufferable before I can only tell you it gets much worse from here.
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