A tearful, unscripted moment between Tim Walz and his 17-year-old son, Gus, has unleashed a flood of praise and admiration – but also prompted ugly online bullying.
Gus Walz, who has a nonverbal learning disorder as well as anxiety and ADHD, watched excitedly from the front row of Chicago’s United Center and sobbed openly Wednesday night as his father, the Democratic nominee for vice president, delivered his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.
…
Conservative columnist and right-wing provocateur Ann Coulter mocked the teenager’s tears. “Talk about weird,” she wrote on X. The message has since been deleted.
Mike Crispi, a Trump supporter and podcaster from New Jersey, mocked Walz’s “stupid crying son” on X and added, “You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats.”
Alec Lace, a Trump supporter who hosts a podcast about fatherhood, took his own swipe at the teenager: “Get that kid a tampon already,” he wrote, an apparent reference to a Minnesota state law that Walz signed as governor in that required schools to provide free menstrual supplies to students.
Let them get all this alpha/beta male crap out if they want to. Nothing says “weird” better than applying to people what was initially intended (and is now widely rejected) as a description of social dynamics among canines.
Left or Right, anyone who can cry on cue to a speech they’ve likely rehearsed a hundred times in their head, isn’t worth paying attention to. Unpopular I know.
For example, I adore John Stewart and agree with almost everything he does, except when he made that emotional impassioned tearful speech a few years back, never once mucking his lines.
Its just a trust thing. Tears sway people, and if its in the moment and captured ad-hoc then I am likely moved, but if all lenses are on it and the speech sounds forced, I switch off.
I don’t think I understand. Are you suggesting that it’s impossible to prepare a speech about something you care deeply about?
Or are you saying that people only cry the first time they tell an emotional story?
I’m sure there are people with those experiences, and maybe you’re one of them. If it helps, I can attest that there are “well rehearsed” stories that I’ve told dozens of times, and I still cry during each telling.
A little bit of everything, I think.
To me, if you care deeply about a topic, then you should be able to communicate that by merit of your expertise in it and not by how emotionally invested you are in it.
Or to put it another way: if crying is literally part of the story, then maybe don’t tell the story when the cameras are rolling, unless of course the story was less about the speech and more about the emotion.
Let’s just take emotions out of politics. It educates absolutely nobody, and the only people won to your side are won by the depth of your professed emotion and not by the validity of your words.
Interesting, thanks for explaining. I agree with the aspiration but maybe not the practicality?
In a perfect world elections would be about hard policy discussions, but in 2024 policy barely matters. Campaigns don’t even release real platforms any more. The first party to take the emotion out of politics would lose horribly, because so many voters respond to it.
Personally, I also like when people acknowledge that policy discussions impact real people. I think there’s an important role for displayed genuine emotion in rational discussion.
I also don’t think that what we’re discussing is relevant to Gus Walz. We have every reason to believe that was a genuine and beautiful apolitical moment.
I agree, this is 2024 and the quickest way to win voters is appeals to emotion/nostalgia rather than punctuating a platform that no one will read. It’s a sad truth.
The kid seems nice, and for what it’s worth I do believe it was genuine. I just wish neither side will wield it for their own political motivations.
and added, “You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats.”
I thought these were just characters in hollywood production. What the fuck.
“Fellas, is it gay to be proud of your parents?”
Repubs are bullying this kid for being proud of his father because they’ve never experienced it themselves. In either direction. They are weak and pathetic losers.
Well my son hates me, so these guys are pretty wEIRrRrRd
If bullying a kid is all they got, they don’t got much.
It’s odd to place the emphasis on your crying male child and then be appalled there is an emphasis on your crying male child.
The kid stood up and owned his fierce emotions for his family. He displayed it instead of hiding it.
You know Trump’s youngest is crying for completely different reasons while hidden away from the public for being on the spectrum
It’s a public event. The occurrence was blasted by the DNC. The son is open to praise or criticism just like anyone else. The rules didn’t change just because he is the potential VP’s son. Either you believe in equal treatment or preferential treatment?
All right man go ahead and try to paint this as something bad lol.
When did I say no one was allowed to make fun of him? It’s just extremely cringy how you guys are trying to find anything you can to make it seem like you’re going to win
You can go vote for your eyeliner wearing couch fucker 😂 The dude is a robot created by the RNC to push project 2025
I’m going to vote for people that look and act like us normal Americans.
Why do Republicans not understand that we have freedom of speech not freedom from consequences?
We are allowed to make fun of you for anything you say, that is OUR freedomI think it’s a matter of decorum. In general we shouldn’t attack people’s kids (when they’re minors) for normal occurrences, even if their a public figure.
I was against bashing Barron when he was a minor, and I’m against bashing Gus until he’s of legal age. In general, however, I refrain from bashing people and would encourage the same decorum from others.
Being able to criticize is not open license to do so in my opinion.
The summary doesn’t even mention that the poor kid has a nonverbal learning disability, anxiety, and ADHD, and these clowns are mocking him.
And on top of that it shouldn’t even matter. I hope that one day my kids admire and love me the same way Gus showed.
Most probably don’t even think those things are real.
Correct. I am older than 10 years old.
I can’t believe that the sudden rise in diagnoses’ is being seen as anything other than the first generation of adults that take mental health seriously finally reached a point in life where they had health insurance and disposable income to focus on their own mental health.
I have had ADHD all my life. When my mom died, I found letters in her things from my school counselor advising I be tested. I found letters from pissed off family members telling her to get me tested.
She didn’t do any of that. But I do remember the time she told me she never got my sister tested for dyslexia because she knew “none of [her] babies were retarded.”My dad would rather think he had a lazy, stupid, worthless kid than that mental illness was real.
Parents would find their baby child had been replaced by odd beings who were almost but not quite human.
However strange appearances aside it was their behaviour that marked them out - changelings were said to be either extremely badly behaved - constantly crying and prone to violence, or at the other end of the spectrum strangely docile, often mute and seemingly unable to comprehend anything about the human world they had been left in.
https://www.hypnogoria.com/folklore_changelings.html
Yep, totally a brand new thing that hasn’t appeared throughout human history.
It shouldn’t matter whether he is LD. No one should be bullied.
Research shows that bullying behavior often stems from a combination of factors such as a desire for social dominance, a lack of empathy, or modeling of aggressive behaviors at home, said Kristen Eccleston, a former special education teacher and advocate for children with social-emotional needs.
You emphasized lack of empathy, but I think we also need to focus on “a desire for social dominance” because it describes exactly what these fascists have planned for America.
Agreed. It’s interesting to me that normal, healthy people just go about their business, and those not so healthy want to impose their sickness on the rest of us. It’s contagious, for the weaker among us, too, apparently.
It absolutely matters. It’s like the difference between hitting someone who’s weaker than you, and hitting someone in a wheelchair. When you’re bullying, you’re punching down. When your victim is an even more vulnerable member of society (disabled, poor, elderly, neurodivergent, etc), you’re punching way down and are a piece of shit.
you’re punching way down and are a piece of shit.
Bullying still makes you a piece of shit even if the victim isn’t disabled, though.
The article mentioned a conservative talk-show host who called Gus a “blubbering bitch boy” and then retracted the statement when he found out the kid has a disability. No, either way, that is not okay!
Yeah, we’re on the same page: bullying is bad no matter what. But surely you agree it’s worse to bully someone with a disability…?
Bullying makes you a piece of shit even if the victim isn’t disabled.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting otherwise. But like everything in reality, it’s not black and white. If you can’t see how it’s worse when the person has disabilities, then I don’t know what to tell you.
I suspect you understand it just fine though.
I do understand, and I think if the only reason a person isn’t bullying someone is because that person is differently abled, that doesn’t make the person who refrained only because the potential victim is differently abled a genuinely decent person, just that they know they are less likely to get away without consequences, if anyone else finds out.
Who are you arguing with? Nobody here (that I’ve seen) has said or even suggested that.
Be best.
Too bad some people just don’t know about or choose to not follow the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
When you’re a narcissist, “others” is nonsensical, because the only person worthy of agency and empathy is you. That’s why the golden rule doesn’t work - it’s like if they were colorblind, they lack the capacity to even understand it.
That’s because they’re “Christians” and nowhere in the Bible does it say to be kind to others, or to have empathy, or to respect each other… /s
Love thy neighbor
Edit: I stopped reading before the /s. My bad. This one’s on me
I almost didn’t add that /s at the end figuring “surely nobody would think I’m serious”. Apparently my comment wasn’t dripping with enough sarcasm!
Case of not seeing the wit for the trees. In the topsy-turvy landscape of the last 8 years or so, the problem is that “dripping with” part. The weirdos do always go for the double-down after all, so adding more starts risking confusion with that tactic of theirs.
I think many people in fact actively get a high from feeling powerful, and therefore doing the exact opposite of what they want done to them, and then are usually the people to whine the loudest when anything of the sort happens to them.
For example Trump’s speeches are like 85% insulting people, whining about those critical about him, etc. Huge middle school bully energy.
Yes and there was recently a speech he gave whining about how he was treated.
Recently? I can’t recall a speech he’s given since he started running for president where he didn’t whine about perceived mistreatment
Lol. You’re right
Does that mean he’s not verbal?
No he is verbal, he said “that’s my dad!” the same way dads say “that’s my boy!”
I think one of us should look up the labels of his disabilities and what they mean, but I’ve so far been too lazy.
There’ll sadly be a lot of MAGA people who think those conditions don’t exist.
It shouldn’t even matter. The kid should be allowed to express his emotions without being mocked for it. Even if he didn’t have any disability, he behaved perfectly fine. Most folks actually found it touching. While it is cruel to mock someone with a disability, I also don’t want the disability to become a way for the media to “justify” his way of expressing himself. There is no need to justify it at all.
Good catch. I’ve added it to the summary. Thanks.
I’m a Republican trying to Protect The Children and I see NOTHING WRONG with Bullying a Nonverbal Child!
Tangential to the point, but any writer that unironicslly uses the phrase “broke the internet” in a headline needs to be sent to a gulag.
Special exception when you’re covering Cloudflare, Solar Winds, and Crowdstrike
Whenever I read the words “broke the Internet” I imagine this scene from The IT Crowd
Conservatives bear their teeth at the sight of happiness. Happy people aren’t subjugated, scared, and in line.
How the fuck it’s related to his disability or anything?
Imagine your father, like a not deadbeat one, a caring one, having his once-in-the-life moment at the state-wide convention. It’s not weird to cry. It’s weird not to.
Men do cry, men do have emotions, men aren’t a fuel for a vehicle you hop on. And men are well capable of anger. The anger against a fucko who laughs at other man’s kid.
Men cry, and cowards hide their emotions out of shame. Let it out wherever you are and fuck everyone else. I don’t trust anybody who doesn’t occasionally cry. That’s sociopath behavior.
The last time I cried was last night watching a video about the LOFTID inflatable heat shield. Tears of joy for the team and for seeing something that’s only been in KSP actually become realized. It felt so cool I cried.
Whoa. It actually worked.
seeing something that’s only been in KSP actually become realized
They may be need to make sure to put the CoG of the vehicle near the heat shield to avoid flipping end over end…I may have a lot of experience with this 😉
They should put another one on the top if they’re going to
EveVenus
Thanks.
It’s ok for macho men to cry and feel every emotion. Randy Savage taught us that.
My god the media is rubbish, “Trump came under fire in 2015 after he appeared to mock a New York Times reporter with a disability”. Like, are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? Appeared my ass, he **did **mock a man with a disability, it isn’t a debate, or a perception, or the appearance, he did that shit.
Pretty sure media writes that way to be lawsuit proof. Everything is allegedly, supposedly, reportedly, according to sources, and so forth. Only things a court of law has confirmed are safe to report as facts.
Though I of course agree it is ridiculous as you suggest. There is video evidence of trump doing it, they might as well call it as it is. Attacking a young neurodivergent man for loving his dad is also despicable.
Yea, I know this, just venting because it just seems that benefit of the doubt is reserved almost exclusively for Trump and fascists.
I mean, that’s not true. Maybe there is some SLAPP fear engaged when dealing with hyper litigious fascists, but it’s a standard practice in media. Like day one journalism school stuff. It’s just common practice no matter who they’re talking to. It’s not cover for the right. Those people just tend to do more dogwhistling and outright hatred that we all know means exactly what it means, but it’s still cloaked in at least some sort of deniability. He didn’t come out and call the reporter retarded. They can characterize that however they like. But it’s still not so cut and dry—even though we all know it’s cut and dry—when it comes to reporting on it.
No. They are purely both-sidesing. They’d get mroe clicks and wins in a lawsuit that 100Million-under Trump and they don’t care. They would never disparage trump directly without also disparaging whoever his opponent is.
That Infowars fuckstick Alex Jones allegedly lost a lawsuit that he allegedly called Sandy Hook victims crisis actors and also allegedly claimed there were no dead kids which allegedly lead to the harassment of the grieving parents by his alleged followers. Allegedly he still has most of not all his assets and is allegedly going to flee the country, allegedly.
Am I doing this right?
He also fucked an ostrich.
I am not surprised that conservatives find open signs of affection, and the general feelings and expression of love between a child and father, to be “weird”.
These comments come from people whose kids hate and/or resent them. Love, in general, is seen by them as weakness. These people need therapy, they are mentally ill.
So I was curious and looked to see what percentage of conservative men seek therapy, and while I didn’t get a number, I came across this interview with a conservative therapist.
At least according to the article, 90% of therapists have liberal values, which in my personal experience makes sense. But the problem is that it makes it difficult for conservatives to find a therapist that they can feel safe expressing their political views, but of course with therapy so frowned upon in conservative circles and they use the church for counsel (not counseling), it’s tough for a conservative therapist to get work. It’s a bit of a catch 22.
The therapist in the interview has so many stomach turning comments that personally I would not touch her with a 10 foot stick, but the point I do sympathize with is that therapy should be accessible to everyone, no matter your religious or political beliefs.
I think this really hits with the “I go to therapy because of people who don’t go to therapy”, but that article gave me a perspective of “oh, the people who don’t go to therapy usually don’t have a therapist they could go to to meet them at their level.”
The problem is when you start getting into what a therapist is actually meant to do. A therapist isn’t meant to just be someone you go talk to for an hour, they’re meant to help you really work on your mental health. For a lot of these conservative men, the issue is their worldview. In order to help heal them and get these men what they would deserve out of therapy, you would need to show them how their negative worldview is built upon a mountain of lies, and get them to let go of their irrational hate. A therapist that buys into and feeds their worldview is just an enabler that would be effectively scamming conservatives.
I guess the problem with that argument is that it doesn’t consider there are a variety of approaches to therapy that don’t all work on some “core function”.
Of course, Hank Green to the rescue once again!
Some therapy is designed to ignore deep trauma and rather focus on the most surface level things. We could go in circles all day about how 9/11 made you terrified of flying, but even if you found some answer, it wouldn’t necessarily help. Instead maybe some exposure therapy or psychedelics or idk some other strategies can be used here and now.
I also think that even conservatives have differing worldviews within their own, so lumping it all together as a bad worldview doesn’t work. Not all conservatives are angry and pissed off at everything and everyone. Not all liberals are the embodiment of enlightenment. When it comes to therapy, I think there is no one size fits all, and a conservative therapist may help a conservative patient in ways that a liberal therapist couldn’t.
I’m okay with shitheads with shit views not having access to a shithead therapist that won’t challenge their bullshit.
I consider people who disagree with me human, and deserving of access to healthcare. As a former childhood conservative, I also understand that changing views is a long process and we need guiding hands that can meet us where we are. I didn’t change my views because someone hammered different views into me, I did it through conversations with people I agreed with on some things, and disagreed with on others.
Political affiliations are not monoliths. My conservative dad now supports a $20 minimum wage. My left wing uncle argued blackface theater is acceptable. Again, we are not monoliths but divisive propaganda wants us to believe the otherside is all bad and we are all good- from politics to religion to our favorite sports teams.
My “shithead” conservative aunt would ABSOLUTELY benefit from therapy. She has an eating disorder, trauma from losing her mom at 6 then living with a physically abusive father, and most likely undiagnosed BPD. I know for a fact I will never talk to her again because we’ve cut her off, but I also fully support her access to therapy that, while different than mine, would still be beneficial.
As far as the “shithead” comment; I will say to you what I said to my “shithead” aunt and uncle at the dinner table when asked “don’t you just agree that conservatives, in general, are smarter than liberals?”
“I believe idiocy knows no bounds”
Edit: you said “shithead” not “dipshit”
Conservatives think the only two possible roles for a father are distant or abusive. Love is probably “too woke” or something.
These people are the living embodiment of daddy issues.
They thought about making fun of duckworth for not having legs but then they realized she would kick their ass legs or not.
