Gus Walz won over the internet wearing his heart on his sleeve at the DNC. But the bullying that followed is what kids experience every day, some say.

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.

  • @blazeknave
    4•2 months ago

    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.