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.
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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.
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 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.
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.
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.
