Life is a funny thing if you have spent enough time watching it fall apart from a distance. Here we are, living in the most advanced age of human history, and what are our leaders doing? They are playing a very serious game of ‘cops and robbers’ with children who still believe in the Easter Bunny. This week, the great city of Minneapolis became the stage for a grand drama. The star of the show was a five-year-old boy. The supporting actors were men in uniforms with guns. And the man providing the review of the play was JD Vance, who wants to be your Vice President. It is truly a masterclass in how to make a superpower look like a very stressed-out preschool teacher.

Let us look at the facts. A child, just five years old, was taken by ICE. Now, normally, when you hear about the government using all its power to grab someone, you think of a super-spy or a mastermind criminal. You think of someone who can at least reach the top shelf of a pantry. But no, this was a child. A child who likely needs help cutting up his grapes so he does not choke. This is who the great American machine decided was a threat to the peace and safety of the nation. It is hard not to laugh, though the kind of laugh I am talking about is the one you have right before you give up on humanity entirely. It is a dry, dusty sort of laugh.

Then we have JD Vance. He went to Minneapolis to talk to the border agents. He came out and did what politicians do best: he explained why the obvious absurdity we all saw was actually very smart and necessary. He tried to justify why the government needed to detain a small boy. He spoke about rules and enforcement. He spoke as if he were discussing a complicated trade deal instead of a kid who probably just wants to watch cartoons. It is a special kind of talent to stand in front of a camera and tell the world that everything is fine while the government is busy putting a kindergartner in the system. It is the kind of performance that makes you realize that politicians are just actors who forgot they were in a play.

Think about the bravery involved here. It must take a lot of courage for grown men with badges to look at a small boy and say, ‘You are the problem.’ It must take even more courage for a man like Vance to stand up and say that this is how a great country should work. He wants us to believe that if we do not lock up the five-year-olds, the whole house of cards will come falling down. If your country is so weak that a child with a lunchbox can destroy it, maybe the child isn’t the problem. Maybe the house was built out of bad glue and old excuses to begin with. But Vance cannot say that. He has to pretend that the system is a perfect machine, even when it is grinding up toddlers.

This is what I call the theater of the absurd. We have real problems in the world. We have wars, we have prices that won’t stop going up, and we have cities that are falling apart. But instead of fixing those things, our leaders want to talk about how tough they are on children. It is easy to be tough on someone who can’t vote and can’t fight back. It is the ultimate shortcut for a politician who wants to look strong without actually doing anything difficult. Vance is just the latest person to read from this script. He stands there with his serious face and his polished shoes, telling us that the law is the law. It is a very simple way to avoid having a heart or a brain.

In Europe, we have seen this kind of thing before. We have a long history of bureaucrats who follow the rules until the world turns gray and lifeless. We know what happens when ‘the system’ becomes more important than common sense. You end up with a world where everyone is just following orders, and no one stops to ask why they are arresting a person who still has baby teeth. It is a slow, boring way for a society to die. It doesn’t end with a bang; it ends with a mountain of paperwork and a child crying in a room full of strangers while a man in a suit explains it all on the evening news.

So, bravo to everyone involved. Bravo to the agents for their tactical victory over a preschooler. Bravo to JD Vance for his brave words in defense of the paperwork. We can all sleep better now, knowing that the streets of Minneapolis are safe from the five-year-old menace. The state has won. The child has lost. And the rest of us get to sit here and watch the show, wondering when the actors will finally realize that the audience isn’t clapping anymore. We are just tired. We are very, very tired of the nonsense.