Walz' son is the star of the Democratic Convention!

Page 1 of 1 [ 8 posts ] 

Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 48,506
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

22 Aug 2024, 4:47 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY97_C2-b6M


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


softlyspeaks41
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 18 Apr 2011
Age: 55
Gender: Male
Posts: 439
Location: Marietta Pennsylvania

22 Aug 2024, 10:13 pm

Can't disagree!



Harmonie
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

User avatar

Joined: 14 Jan 2024
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 368
Location: New England

22 Aug 2024, 10:43 pm

There are right wingers on social media making fun of him.

Are we as a society still really so gosh darn immature to not understand that men can have emotions, too?

Also, it's so telling that these cretins make fun of him for being emotional and loving his father. As if a family being a good, loving family is undesirable. It's been my impression from the right's representatives lately (like Vance) that they see the family as a utilitarian unit designed only to make and raise children. The happiness within those families is not important in their eyes. A husband, obedient wife and children model is the only thing that is important to them. (Or perhaps they were raised in abusive families themselves and thus don't even understand what a healthy family model even is. They resent happiness. Considering how toxic right wing Christian environments are, this wouldn't surprise me.)

I want to think I'm being too harsh. But they keep on giving me reason to be this harsh. I hope I'm wrong.


_________________
Diagnosed with ADHD, Strongly Suspecting I'm also Autistic


King Kat 1
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Aug 2020
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 658
Location: Ohio

23 Aug 2024, 12:40 am

Ann Coulter is a vile disgusting person.

I wrote this on social media- Ann Coulter is truly an awful mean-spirited nasty person. You don't mock people's children and especially those who have disabilities, many people with disabilities whose brain may be wired a bit different than others, show emotions differently at times. Gus was just really happy for his father and that was just his own way of showing it.
So back off Ann and go jump in a deep lake.


_________________
If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.
― Calvin Coolidge


Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 48,506
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

23 Aug 2024, 1:24 am

King Kat 1 wrote:
Ann Coulter is a vile disgusting person.

I wrote this on social media- Ann Coulter is truly an awful mean-spirited nasty person. You don't mock people's children and especially those who have disabilities, many people with disabilities whose brain may be wired a bit different than others, show emotions differently at times. Gus was just really happy for his father and that was just his own way of showing it.
So back off Ann and go jump in a deep lake.


Call me biased, but I tend to see this sort of bullying more commonly among the political right.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


King Kat 1
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Aug 2020
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 658
Location: Ohio

23 Aug 2024, 10:48 am

I've noticed that too, now I've heard some on the far left say some pretty mean things, but bullying seems to be more prevalent these days among the right. I mean, look who's leading the show now, the ultimate bully and Narcissist, Trump.


_________________
If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.
― Calvin Coolidge


funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 40
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 29,358
Location: Right over your left shoulder

23 Aug 2024, 10:50 am

The left is prone to purity tests and eating itself, but the bullying from that side seems to be more about expecting better, rather than just literally bullying for the sake of bullying.


_________________
I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face
"Many of us like to ask ourselves, What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now." —Former U.S. Airman (Air Force) Aaron Bushnell


ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 67
Gender: Male
Posts: 36,116
Location: Long Island, New York

25 Aug 2024, 7:59 am

King Kat 1 wrote:
I've noticed that too, now I've heard some on the far left say some pretty mean things, but bullying seems to be more prevalent these days among the right. I mean, look who's leading the show now, the ultimate bully and Narcissist, Trump.

The Right Hates Kids. It’s Weird
Quote:
There are few things more normal at a political convention than a politician shouting out their family, and that’s exactly what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz did on Wednesday night as he accepted the nomination to be Kamala Harris’s running mate. Addressing his wife and two children, Walz said, “Hope, Gus, and Gwen, you are my entire world, and I love you.” Gus Walz, who is 17 years old, crying as he stood up, pointed to his father and said, “That’s my dad!”

To people with a normal range of human empathy, this was a touching moment. But remarkably, to a cadre of Republican pundits and MAGA-heads it was an excuse for attacks on Gus Walz, including cruel comments alluding to the fact that he is neurodivergent. Dinesh D’Souza, a dishonest GOP provocateur who was a convicted felon before being pardoned by fellow convicted felon Donald Trump, tweeted, “The kid might have mental problems, but he’s acting just like Tim Walz! So what’s Walz’s excuse?”

Ann Coulter, another longtime concoctor of reactionary bile, posted a picture of Gus Walz with the comment, “Talk about weird.”

Parker Molloy, on her invaluable Substack The Present Age, made a stomach-churning list of some of the abuse from the right:

Anti-LGBTQ activist Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project mocked Gus Walz, writing, “Tim Walz’ son Gus wears eyeliner.”

Prominent pro-Trump Twitter accounts Dom Lucre, Colin Rugg, and Autism Capital all mocked the 17-year-old.

“Get that kid a tampon already,” wrote a right-wing podcaster Alec Lace.

Trump ally Mike Crispi called Gus Walz a “beta b***h.”

Right-wing radio host Jay Weber called Gus Walz a “blubbering b***h boy.”

Similar malice has been directed at Ella Emhoff, the 25-year-old daughter of Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff. Much of that vitriol has focused on Ella’s having tattoos and allegedly not conforming to conventional notions of femineity. As such, these attacks carry an odor of homophobia and transphobia (sometimes in very explicit terms), which is independent of Ella Emhoff’s own identity.

Richard Hanania, who once trafficked in openly racist ideas but is trying to remake himself as mainstream conservative, tweeted, “Ella Emhoff being a part of the first family has the potential to radicalize American parents. I’m for women living the lives they want, but this is pretty much the nightmare scenario for most people with a daughter.” Osita Nwanevu helpfully reminded readers that Hanania has strange ideas of childhood. In November 2023, Hanania put forth this scenario, which he seemed to regard as a dilemma: “Let’s say Jeffrey Epstein wants to have sex with a 14 year-old girl, and will pay her $10 million. The money will go into a mutual fund that will pay out when she’s 21. The girl agrees, as do both of her parents. Should this be allowed?”

The attacks on Gus Walz and Ella Emhoff are about something more than the usual sordid manifestations of partisan politics. As Molloy astutely notes, the right has long been willing to target for polemical abuse not just the children of politicians but any children who defy reactionary norms either in their personal life (by being gay or trans) or their political activism:

"We’ve witnessed it in the actions of accounts like Libs of TikTok, which regularly targets LGBTQ+ youth, potentially exposing them to harassment and danger. We’ve seen it in attacks on climate activist Greta Thunberg, the survivors of school shootings, and now in the venom aimed at Gus Walz. The right seems to have no qualms about weaponizing children and teenagers in their culture war, all while claiming to be the protectors of youth."

In other words, the personal attacks on Walz and Emhoff are part of a larger right-wing war against the young, who are seen as collectively failing to live up to gender norms that are deemed essential to human civilization. The attacks are thus part of a continuum that includes JD Vance’s obsession with single cat ladies and the right’s bizarre attempt to shame singer Taylor Swift for being unmarried.

Tim Walz, of course, has gotten much mileage out of labeling the contemporary right as “weird.” This is a descriptor that has resonated with voters. But it is worth specifying what is the exact nature of that weirdness.

The weirdness of the American right is that it is a political movement increasingly motivated by hatred of children and the young. America, and the rest of the world, is going through a period of cultural change, whereby the younger generation is challenging long-held notions of normative gender behavior as well as racial hierarchy. This threatens conservatives, who respond by demonizing any display of unconventional behavior or adoption of social change (hence the backlash to “woke”).

The typical right-winger of our era is an older person (usually but not always a man) who hates talking to his children or grandchildren. Elon Musk, who is increasingly aligning himself with Trumpism, can stand as a prototype.

Musk’s behavior illuminates why the right is so threatened by the families of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. By all evidence, these are robust happy families where everyone loves one another and is mutually supportive. To the contemporary right, this is something shocking.


_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity

“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman