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.

  • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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    4 months ago

    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.

    • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Yea, I know this, just venting because it just seems that benefit of the doubt is reserved almost exclusively for Trump and fascists.

      • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        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.

    • Kalkaline @leminal.space
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      4 months ago

      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?

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      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.