We have watched in recent years as the establishment media has shamelessly used political differences among the family members of President Donald Trump, real or imagined, against him to make a point.
Now that Vice President J.D. Vance is in the national spotlight, those same tactics are being used on him.
CBS News published a story on Wednesday about how Lakshmi Chilukuri, the mother of Second Lady Usha Vance, has argued in favor of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of California San Diego, where she serves as provost of Sixth College.
The outlet noted that Chilukuri helped the school create a pilot class about race, served on the biological sciences diversity committee, and has otherwise thrown herself into the sorts of DEI efforts that the Trump administration is working to discourage.
The school features a letter from Chilukuri to incoming students emphasizing the “steadfast adherence to principles that drive equity, inclusion, and an embrace of diversity” at the institution.
“As we come into the new academic year with the pandemic not quite yet in the rearview mirror, with issues of equity and systemic racism, anti-Blackness and anti-Asian racism yet unresolved, we have before us both opportunity and responsibility,” Chilukuri said in the undated letter.
Vance was contacted by CBS News to talk about the differences in opinion he holds with his mother-in-law.
“I don’t like DEI, and I’m proud of what our administration has done on that front,” he told the outlet.
But he didn’t stop there, making clear that CBS News was engaging in slimy tactics.
Did CBS News cross the line here?
“I love my mother-in-law. If she doesn’t share my views on DEI I suppose I’ll have to do what 99 percent of Americans do when confronted with a family member who doesn’t always agree with them: get over it,” Vance said.
“I’ll choose instead to focus on her kindness and the fact that she’s an incredible mother and loving grandmother to the most important people in my life.”
Vance added that the story even exists in the first place “because CBS has decided that harassing my mother in law is a reasonable price in order to attack President Trump.”
Chilukuri did not answer any emails from CBS News.
That likely means, to her credit, that she is not seeking to undermine her son-in-law’s work, despite their apparent disagreements.
Vance is exactly right.
The vast majority of families in this country have various members with differing political views, but they simply choose to agree to disagree.
This country, in large part, is one in which the grumpy woke college student cousin and the crackpot unhinged conspiracy theorist uncle can get together at Thanksgiving or Christmas while putting aside their differences.
It sounds like the Vance family is no different.
The article therefore vindicated Vance, while if anything exposing the ways in which the establishment media likes to divide the country by stoking our political divisions, even among everyday American families who otherwise love and appreciate each other.
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