Ahead of the midterm elections, Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance traveled to Alaska on October 5, bringing their newborn baby, Alec, and their four-year-old daughter, Mirabel, along with them. In some photos and clips circulating online, JD can be seen carrying his newborn baby as he gets off the plane.
If that doesn’t sound particularly remarkable or newsworthy, many critics would agree. JD was, after all, simply carrying his own child. But some people online are praising him for being an amazing and involved father because of it, which has left people wondering, is the bar really that low?
JD was praised for “humanizing fatherhood.”
*Father holds his child* MAGA: INCREDIBLE!
— That Gay Guy 💬 (@gayguycandleco) October 6, 2026
One viral post from anti-abortion advocate Anna Lulis shared a Fox News clip that showed JD arriving in Alaska while holding Alec. In the same clip, Usha was walking down the stairs with Mirabel.
“Incredible. Vance arrives in Alaska carrying his newborn baby,” Anna wrote. “He is single-handedly humanizing fatherhood.”
Meanwhile, some critics in the comments wondered what was so special about this. From their perspective, he’s just being a parent. “How low is the bar for Vance if you find it incredible that he is carrying his own child?” someone questioned. “Incredible,” another person wrote sarcastically. “He is doing his f—ing job as a father.”
“I’ve never once seen a father hold his child,” a third person joked. “This is so inspirational.”
Many people pointed out that the thing JD was being praised for is something that parents do “every day around the world.”
Some critics even saw it as a “photo op” or “PR stunt.”
The bar for men is underground if a guy holding his child is "single-handedly humanizing fatherhood"
— Billy Binion (@billybinion) October 6, 2026
They also accused him of using his own child as a political prop. To be fair, it’s possible that JD was just carrying his own child because it’s something that parents do—not because he wanted any sort of attention or praise for it. But some of his critics pointed out that the fact that he will hold his child for a bit on camera doesn’t actually say much of anything about how involved he is in raising his children.
“He carried his infant off a plane in front of dozens of cameras. Wow, so brave,” someone commented. “Let’s see when he carries his kid through a mall for 3 hours like the rest of us normal fathers did.”
Besides, would a woman ever be praised for being “incredible” and “humanizing” motherhood because she held her own baby?
People also speculated that JD might have been holding the baby because of something that happened just before this.
Usha Vance nearly had a very dangerous fall while holding her 2-month-old and a large leather diaper bag. Why did nobody, including her husband, help her? https://t.co/bzJodvxA7J
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) October 5, 2026
Another clip from the family’s travels has gone viral recently. It showed Usha stumbling while getting off a plane with Alec. Luckily, she caught herself—but no one appeared to help her when she tripped. JD emerged from the plane with Mirabel seconds after that.
Perhaps that scary incident was part of the reason that JD carried the baby off the plane in Alaska. Either way, a lot of people rejected the idea that JD was “humanizing fatherhood” by doing such an ordinary thing that parents do all the time.
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