JD Vance’s Redeeming Grace

In this age of cancel culture, the legacy media likes nothing more than claiming a scalp.

We saw it play out in Washington this week with the abrupt resignation of a 25-year-old DOGE staffer named Marko Elez, whose now-deleted X posts were the subject of a Wall Street Journal exposé.

Thanks to the intervention of Vice President JD Vance, Elez will get a second chance.

We’re fortunate to have a vice president whose Catholic faith teaches repentance and forgiveness. Vance didn’t need to use his political capital to defend Elez, but by doing so he reminded Americans that we shouldn’t be so quick judge others.

“I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance wrote on X. “I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”

Vance’s comments quickly ignited their own firestorm, prompting a question at President Donald Trump’s news conference Friday and a testy exchange with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.

“Are you going to tell him to apologize for saying ‘Normalize Indian hate’ before this rehire? Just asking for the sake of both of our kids,” said Khanna, whose parents immigrated to the United States from India. Vance’s wife, Usha, is the daughter of Indian immigrants.

Rather than stoop to Khanna’s level, Vance again reminded us of God’s mercy.

“Racist trolls on the internet, while offensive, don’t threaten my kids,” Vance replied. “You know what does? A culture that denies grace to people who make mistakes. A culture that encourages congressmen to act like whiny children.”

It’s refreshing to have a vice president with moral clarity.

Regardless of Elez’s fate with the Department of Government Efficiency, Vance struck a blow to cancel culture—and the gotcha journalism that precipitates it.

“We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever,” Vance also wrote in his original post.

In this case, sadly, that’s precisely what the legacy media did.

According to the media monitoring service Meltwater, Elez was mentioned in 3,860 stories over the past few days.

The original Wall Street Journal story, written by Katherine Long, upended an entire news cycle. It’s no wonder Elez felt the pressure to resign.

In an ironic twist, however, it’s now Long who is facing scrutiny. Following criticism from Vance and Elon Musk, who demanded that Long be fired, The New York Times declared: “Trump and Musk Attack Journalists by Name in Social Media Posts.”

After all the hullabaloo, it appears Elez will get his job back.

Musk asked users on X if Elez should be rehired. More than 385,000 responded to his poll, 78% agreeing that he should get a second chance.

“He will be brought back,” Musk wrote Friday. “To err is human, to forgive divine.”

Indeed.

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