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Well, it's no secret that the monarchy is in trouble and the neverending scandal hanging around Andrew Mountbatton Windsor is a threat to the entire institution. The palace has serious questions to answer about Andrew's alleged behavior and misconduct, and people are right to be angry. But what about when that anger is taken out on children? That's what happened at Trooping the Color when Republican activists heckled the Princess of Wales and her kids. Sky News contributor Louise Roberts thinks that by doing so they lost the argument before they even started. The British monarchy has endured a torid decade. We lost Queen Elizabeth II. King Charles is battling cancer. Prince Andrew remains engulfed by the Epstein
scandal. And of course, Prince Harry continues to monetize the family grievances from a California mansion. If you're a Republican, it's been a pretty targetrich environment. And yet last weekend, the anti- monarchy movement handed the crown its best public relations moment in years and didn't even realize it. Protesters from the group Republic disrupted trooping the color outside Buckingham Palace, demanding answers over Andrew's links to Jeffrey Epstein. The questions about Andrew are legitimate. The target, however, was catastrophically wrong. Armed with megaphones and a burning sense of self-importance, activists turned up to scream at a woman recovering from cancer and three children who have done absolutely nothing wrong. Republic calls it holding
power to account. Most people would call it something else. Princess Charlotte is 11 years old. What exactly was she supposed to answer for? This was the Republican movement in its purest and most warped form. Strip away the lofty rhetoric about democracy and what you're left with is a group of adults shouting abuse at children in a carriage. Now, let's be clear. Andrew should answer serious questions. The Epstein scandal is not trivial. It should never be minimized or ignored. And the palace's carefully scripted responses have done little to suture the wound. Accountability matters, but Republic is not interested in that. Andrew is simply the most useful weapon available in a much older campaign to dismantle an
institution they have always opposed. That is where the republic strategy completely falls apart. Nothing kills a political argument faster than making the public sympathetic to the people you are attacking. Right now, many people feel sympathy for Katherine, the Princess of Wales, who has endured more in the past 2 years than most people face in a lifetime. And that look of absolute contempt, she fired back at the protesters. Bravo, Kate. Booing the mother of the future king at a public parade doesn't make you courageous. It makes you look like a bully. This is a movement so consumed by its own righteousness that it can no longer distinguish between a legitimate target and three children sitting in a
carriage. It is weak unlike the monarchy which has survived civil wars, beheadings, abdications and even the Sussex book tour. So trust me it will survive a megaphone.
