Vandalism, contrary to the group’s claim that they’re performing “public art,” is the artless tantrum of a childish, self-absorbed mind. Defeating a block of stone or bronze hardly requires courage or, obviously, intellect.

Why not come up with something, I don’t know, classier?

Make an argument. Present facts. Bring passion but keep a cool head. One could argue, for example, that the protests against Confederate statues are substantively different from the objections to Roosevelt’s monument. Given that most Civil War statues in the South were erected during the civil rights movement, inarguably, they memorialize not Southern courage but Jim Crow, a cowardly, despicable period of state-sponsored terrorism against blacks who had the audacity to insist upon equality under the law.