Liberal Neighbors to JD Vance -- Hillbilly, Go Home

Debra Saunders on Sep 19, 2024

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The park next to JD Vance's house in Alexandria, Virginia, is closed. After two assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump, security is tight near the Vance home in Del Ray, the upscale, family-friendly neighborhood that leans very much to the left.

There are security barriers and men and women in uniforms. Neighbors who have talked to the press understand. The Secret Service "is doing what they need to do," Del Ray resident Erica Toler told ALXnow. "We look forward to getting our park back in a few months."

Del Ray has not been particularly friendly to the author of "Hillbilly Elegy."

A number of Vance's neighbors want the family out because they disagree with his politics. Another neighbor told ALXnow, "If he lived up in Seminary, where he belongs, this kind of thing wouldn't happen."

This kind of thing being:

Shortly after the newly minted Ohio senator, his wife, Usha, and three young children moved to Del Ray in March 2023, a local artist "yarn-bombed" a tree outside the home with a knitted sign that read "Respect Our Rights." Yes, this brand of intolerance predated Trump's decision to pick Vance as his running mate.

On Wednesday, when I went to see the "temporarily closed" Judy Lowe Neighborhood Park, which is right next to the Vance home, I saw numerous "Harris Walz" signs on lawns and fences strategically placed in view of the Vance home. Also in the mix were a "Forward" poster featuring the Democratic nominee and a "Cats for Kamala" poster, a play on Vance's 2021 remark likening Democrats to "childless cat ladies."

Putting up political signs of any stripe is a First Amendment right, which I wholeheartedly defend.

This is America, where people have every right to criticize political candidates. Just as I have every right to criticize their poor treatment of a fellow American. Sadly, in a country evenly divided between left and right, some folks in Del Ray think they're too precious to have to be exposed to dissenting views.

Vance's experience is not a one-time thing. In 2022, activists protested outside the homes of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

In 2021, the wife of Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, came outside of the family's home in Vienna, Virginia, with a seven-week-old baby to ask protesters to cut it out.

Democrats are not immune. In 2017, protesters swarmed outside then-Sen. Dianne Feinstein's San Francisco home. In 2018, Code Pink gathered outside Feinstein's home to protest the U.S. bombing of Syria.

As an Alexandria resident, I live near Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat. I've seen activists picket outside this home, and I have yelled at them for picketing outside his home, instead of his office.

There is one bright light in the Del Ray neighbors' message to the Vances that they are trespassing and should leave: The bad neighbors may get their wish.

If the Trump-Vance ticket wins in November, the Vances will have to move -- to the vice president's residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.

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