Last month, the Daily Mail and various other similar outlets reported that 20-year-old Malia Obama, Barack Obama's daughter, was in Miami drinking wine with friends. The article was a gossipy tattle-tale piece with more than enough pictures of Malia holding a bottle of wine.
Many people, including myself, wondered why this was even a story. There are many underage drinkers who are younger than she is, and sipping wine when you're only 20 is one of the more benign things one can do. Also, she was spending the weekend at a hotel with friends, just like others there were doing. The Daily Mail could have titled the article, "Young Girl Hangs Out with Friends, Sips Wine" and it still would have been the same story.
Gossip outlets and agenda-based media personalities get a sick kick out of attacking small things a famous individual has done, even if it's something many people do or they themselves have done. And when it is a politician's child, it's open season.
In the case of Obama's daughter, political agenda-driven people are using this occasion to try to paint the Obama parents as people who don't care about their kids. They'll say that Mr. and Mrs. Obama pay no attention to their children when, in reality, it's the complete opposite. The truth is, we don't know and don't need to know what is personally happening in the Obama family.
Public attacks or rude comments on politicians' children happens frequently. And it's not isolated to one side of the aisle; people from both sides partake in this low form of behavior.
In the summer of 2019, actor Peter Fonda tweeted that Trump's 12-year-old son, Barron, should be put "in a cage full of pedophiles" to make Trump take action on children separated at the border. While this obviously wasn't a serious suggestion, it shows the length people will go to forward their own agenda.
This isn't the first time hostile comments were made about Barron Trump. Rosie O'Donnell once speculated that he had autism. SNL writer, Katie Rich, tweeted that Barron Trump "will be this country's first homeschool shooter." While Rich is a comedian and not to be taken seriously, it's still best not to go after a child. That is true of any child, not just Barron Trump.
In 2015, during the 2016 election cycle, a Washington Post political cartoon portrayed Ted Cruz's daughters as monkeys. The cartoon suggested that Cruz uses his children as pet monkeys for props after Cruz's daughters were in his presidential ad. It was uncalled for to mockingly portray Cruz's children, who were 4 and 7 years old at the time.
Tasteless and disgusting comments should not be made about young children and making one to benefit your own politics displays your degeneracy to the public. This tactic shows that you are willing to bully a child just trying to live his life because you disagree with their parents. Unless they are shaping policy, as in the case of Donald Trump's older children, it is best to leave politicians' children alone, especially young ones.
