On Gus Walz and toxic masculinity

There was a moment during the Democratic National Convention that made the news in both the best and worst ways.

While Democratic Vice-Presidential hopeful Tim Walz was speaking, his son Gus burst into tears, rose from his seat, and pointed at the stage. “That’s my dad!” he said.

When I first saw this moment, my initial thought was that it was sweet. Gus Walz loves his dad! And who wouldn’t? When Tim Walz was announced as Vice-President Kamala Harris’ pick, I went from “who the hell is Tim Walz?” to “I would follow Tim Walz into Hell” within the span of about 24 hours.

But there was another part of me — a part that’s been beaten down and consistently disappointed on a daily basis for the last decade or so — that knew what was coming.

Sure enough, the worst people in the world began to chime in.

Ann Coulter, the conservative political commentator perhaps best known for battling Lieutenant First Class Ellen Ripley shortly before being jettisoned from an airlock, retweeted an article about Gus Walz being overcome with emotion. “Talk about weird…” she commented.

Conservative Wisconsin radio host Jay Weber, who resembles an egg with a drinking problem, took things a step further.

“Sorry, but this is embarrassing for both father and son,” he tweeted. “If the Walzs represent today’s American man, this country is screwed; ‘Meet my son, Gus. He’s a blubbering b**** boy. His mother and I are very proud.”

Various conservative voices tweeted other criticisms of this innocent young man who made the mistake of showing visible human emotion, and somehow, many of their takes were even worse than Weber’s.

And then these hateful voices were informed of some more information about Gus Walz: in addition to being 17 years old, he is neurodivergent and has a nonverbal learning disorder.

Many of these hatemongers then deleted their comments, and Jay Weber issued a groveling apology, which some said resembled that of a blubbering b**** boy. Not me, though. I’d never say a thing like that.

Now here’s the thing: the fact that Gus Walz has a relatively minor learning disability is totally immaterial to this discussion. It changes nothing.

You know what prompted him to cry? His dad was on stage discussing how he and his wife had needed IVF treatments to have children and the stress they endured during that time. He said that when his eldest child was born, he and his wife Gwen named her “Hope.”

“Hope, Gus, and Gwen, you are my entire world, and I love you,” Tim Walz said.

I am a 39-year-old man. If one of my parents was on the world stage, having recently accepted the Vice-Presidential nomination, and told a roaring crowd of 20,000-some people that I was their entire world, it’s safe to say I’d find myself overcome with emotion. That strikes me as a natural human reaction.

It’s tempting to say that the reason so many of these hateful commenters mocked Gus Walz is because they have never done anything to inspire pride in their children, nor did their parents ever do anything to inspire pride in them. That assessment, however, is as irrelevant to the greater point as it is searingly accurate.

To me, the telling detail is that Tim Walz’ daughter Hope was also overcome with emotion during her father’s speech. However, no one criticized her for weeping.

We expect women to weep. When men weep, it’s an aberration, a sign of weakness.

There is a toxic mindset that’s been seeping into the groundwater of this nation for generations. It’s supported by a certain subsection of both men and women. The mindset can be boiled down to two main points.

1. If a man experiences any positive emotion and reveals it to the world, he’s basically a woman.
2. Being a woman is the worst thing in the world you can be.

Obviously, both points are untrue. The worst thing in the world you can be is Jay Weber.

Nonetheless, this mindset is profoundly damaging. How many men do you know who lock up their feelings so tight that they don’t even understand themselves? How many men do you know who would rather cut off their own finger than do something that might be perceived as even slightly feminine? How many men do you know who would rather have someone call them a human monster than call them gay?

Toxic masculinity isn’t borne out of thin air. It’s drilled into people by their families, by their friends, by media, and by public discourse. And over time, the men who fall victim can no longer process or understand their own emotions, causing their emotions to become deformed and aberrant.

They can’t reveal their depression, so they try to drink and drug it away. They can’t deal with stress at work, so they beat their wife and/or children. They can’t express their loneliness, so they commit acts of violence against strangers. They can’t accept that they’re gay, so they devote themselves to making life harder for gay people.

If more men had the emotional maturity of Gus Walz, the world would be a better, safer place for everyone. The hateful can laugh at the young man all they want; the joke’s on them, and the punchline isn’t funny.