Gus Walz broke the internet with his tearful love for his dad. Then the bullying began

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 673 points – Gus Walz broke the internet with his tearful love for his dad. Then the bullying began
usatoday.com

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.

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You're telling me the gutter of humanity couldn't lift themselves out of the slime of division, hate, and bigotry to see a son who loves his father vibing and letting the love go in a great moment of high emotions?

Color me shocked. Fucking weirdos.

They don't understand kids loving their parents.

No, they don't understand sons loving their fathers.

They're weirdly into daughters loving their fathers though.

Yeah they would have loved if it was an attractive 15 year old girl instead, probably would have invited her on a jet to a private island…

Ann coulter literally said “talk about weird.”

“That kid really loves his dad. Is no one else seeing this?! What a strange relationship.”

The conservative mindset in a nutshell.

I like how the one lady tried to flip the "weird" label onto it and failed so spectacularly she had to delete it because it turns out normal people don't think it's weird for guys to cry or to love your parents.

Yeah, how is this a headline? Bullies continue to bully. These are not swing voters, I don't want to think about them anymore. I hate how much of Kamala's speech I spent veering from sobbing joy to wondering how the right is going to snippet the moment.

That fucking boy, the reflection on that loving father and mother, instilled in me once again, a feeling that society is progressing, the way I felt from 07 to 16. He cracked the broken frozen part of my heart right open.

I want this fucking maga Nazi bullshit to go away so we can get back on track to loving one another more openly and inventing cool future shit to stop climate change. Not giving my taxes to babies who want to play with my infrastructure like it's their toys.

There are honestly few things in this world more weird than the idea of mocking pure expressions of love.

These people have lost their humanity, and are drowning in their own "alpha culture" cruelty. To make things even more weird, the "alpha" they follow is an amoral, senile man with a low IQ and a propensity to wear diapers in public.

They think him crying for an extremely emotional event is beta yet this is alpha:

At least Gus was crying with happiness. Rittenhouse was crying in fear.

I was hoping this picture would be on this thread.

Crying is only allowed by men if you're a conservative under oath I suppose.

Let's add another one.

Some of us are old enough to remember John Boehner before he showed everyone that he stands for nothing and became a pro-cannabis lobbyist after retiring from his position as the GOP Speaker of the House of Representatives (fucking scumbag. Put people in prison for decades because of it while you have the power to change that, and then immediately becoming a lobbyist for cause when you lose that power.

Dude used to cry all the fucking time. It was like his trademark.

I guess it is:

Real tears for real emotions are beta.

Fake tears for emotionally manipulating a jury are alpha.

Wasn’t this picture taken after the “not guilty” verdict was read?

He’s on the witness stand here.

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.

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?

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.

The summary doesn't even mention that the poor kid has a nonverbal learning disability, anxiety, and ADHD, and these clowns are mocking him.

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.

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.

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 thought you were talking specifically about the golden rule at first

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

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!

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.

Lol. Replied to wrong comment. I'm human, it happens.

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...?

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.

Most probably don't even think those things are real.

Correct. I was not diagnosed 10 years ago.

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 one struggling with mental illness, because somehow that would have been a greater reflection on him than my innate lazy, etc nature would.

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.

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.

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.

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 😉

Of course their reasons weren’t love…

Jones has some Chester A Arthur vibes going with that facial hair. WTF?

Don't listen to the "we didn't know he had a disability" crowd. They knew what they were doing.

Give them a few terms in power and that kid advances from "having a disability" to "being euthanised for the good of the nation".

I'm more irritated that so many people use his disability as an "excuse." If he were the most average, neurotypical boy in the world, it would still be perfectly normal and acceptable to get excited and emotional about his father potentially being the next vice president.

Maybe, maybe not.

It’s irrelevant because that’s not what happened.

I get what you’re saying, but I find comparisons like this - although founded in fairness- to be ultimately unhelpful because they draw consideration away from what did happen: bullying and otherism. This isn’t about what might have been, it’s about what happened. And we can say how it would have been unacceptable under this or that circumstance, but that, I feel, detracts from us all uniting behind saying that THIS, under THESE circumstances was wrong.

I’m not trying to criticize you at all, your intentions are good here. I just don’t think that we should lose focus of criticizing the bullies for the reason why they were bullying in the first place. They were bullying this kid because he is different. Because he is an other. If he wasn’t, they probably would not have, or they would not have attacked his otherness.

I didn't know he had a disability, and all I thought was "That kid is really proud of his father, good for him"

1 more...

"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

I feel like that's not the win they think it is. A young man is passionate and loves his father dearly, and has been raised in a loving environment that allows him to express himself openly. The cum cups and diapers are fine, but genuine emotion?: "Weird."

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.

Conservatives think the only two possible roles for a father are distant or abusive. Love is probably "too woke" or something.

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"

A kid is incredibly proud of his dad and they mock him? The fuck is wrong with the world.

What's wrong with the world? Men aren't allowed to cry.

Oh man you should have seen my ex the first time I cried after she admitted she cheated on me the first time.

She was so angry that I was crying she started stammering and yelling that it was my fault, etc. it actually stopped me from crying because I thought it was so funny she said that.

But I didn't learn my lesson and the whole thing repeated 4 years later and it again was all my fault. That time I learned my lesson, it wasn't that I wasnt allowed to cry, that's fine. It's that I wasn't allowed to have emotions.

Sorry you had an abusive ex. I hope things are better now.

I think the two emotions men are allowed to have are anger and happiness. Anything else is viewed as weakness.

Yes that is far more correct. Anger was somehow more acceptable than vulnerability

Of course not. Real men shoot up the school when they get overwhelmed. Get it right

But…. conservatives are the party of family values. /s.

Yeah, of "normal" family values. To a rep dipshit, this kid is obviously not "normal" and I'll bet an arm that there's already been an idiot or hundred that asked if the kid is vaccinated.

Fuck anyone who even says anything about this kid.

I WISH my teenage kid loved me like that 🤣 These internet bitches are just jealous.

Adults bullying a teenager is cringe.

They are mentally stuck in middle school.

It's weird. It's pathetic.

It's the best years of their lives. They got to bully people and teachers didn't punish them... it went downhill from there. Not all of course, but the bully types, most likely.

Doesn’t matter if he was normative or not.

There’s no excuse for treating someone like shit for having real emotions that harmed absolutely nobody.

I mean, Republicans are usually deep in the throes of toxic masculinity these days, so as shitty as it is that they’re responding this way, it’s not surprising.

Anyone who claims something broke the internet should be shot

They're so used to their own children either hating them or having complete indifference towards them that they think that's the norm.

They're psychologically abusing children from behind their keyboards and phones, for fucking nothing. Like, it does them no favours, but they just can't help themselves.

We should be compiling lists of such people and their bullying tweets, and sending them to anyone who advertises with them or employs them. This shit needs to stop.

They thought about making fun of duckworth for not having legs but then they realized she would kick their ass legs or not.

Oh hey look, the new ann coulter proposal video just droppe... And, he called it off.

Just think of the fucking human sludge it would take to propose to ann coulter in the first place, and then realize that those dudes STILL couldn't go through with it. They got one full whiff and said, "LOOK lady... I literally pay millions of dollars to hunt human children for fun in Luxembourg, I have a Michelin chef flown in to prepare their livers for me for dinner... but YOU are just a god damn irredeemable monster... I can't go through with this..."

It broke X, can't tell if on purpose or some weird algorithm thing. I clicked on trending topics and Hunter Biden was trending but only 1 in 3 of the tweets under that trending topic mentioned Hunter, and all of them were about Gus.

Then the same thing for Barron Trump, and Kyle Rittenhouse. A series of young men became trending topics but all of the tweets were about Gus. Just odd.

Obviously some of it was people comparing Gus to the other guys but a majority were just straight up about Gus and no one else.

Twitter now leans super right after Elon’s changes, so it doesn’t surprise me in the least

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.

Excellent. The press have a story they can jump up and down on for a day or two and leave Harris alone.

Excellent work, Gus. You did good a hundred different ways, sir.

Be best

  • Melanoma Trump

They are!

Be best: Hater. Weirdo. Asshole. Psychopath.

They're the best at that!

can we please not weaponize "weird". I know it's popular right now but surely you can see how this can blow up in your face.

Wow Republicans are weird. I was watching that and could only think what a beautiful moment it was. It was touching how incredibly proud Gus is of his dad, which suggests to me that they've probably got a pretty healthy family.

The fucking hell is wrong with these people‽ Get that boy a hug from his dad, he seems like he’s had a ton but he could’ve used another. That’s a seriously loving father son relationship, one I think a lot of us people who had shitty dads see with a lot of respect.

Instead republicans cry when the oligarchs take all their money via inflation and increased housing costs

All this culture nonsense is such a distraction

I'm a Republican trying to Protect The Children and I see NOTHING WRONG with Bullying a Nonverbal Child!

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.

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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 freedom

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.