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 bitch.”

Right-wing radio host Jay Weber called Gus Walz a “blubbering bitch 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 has a trans child, who is now an adult and refuses to talk to her father. This refusal seems more than justified because Musk continues to use her dead name (the pre-transition name of the child) and hurl bitter personal abuse toward her.

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.