Everyone knew they were just using kids (and we all knew those were exceedingly rare cases) as a dogwhistle. Its always “what about the children” to these people, but its never actually about the children.

An easy way to tell if someone actually cares about children, ask if they are in favor of free school lunches. If they don’t, they don’t actually care about the wellbeing of children. There’s an ulterior motive.