America Is Sick Of Bullies, And The DNC Is Proof Of That
From shocking speakers to surprise performances, the Democratic National Convention was something to behold.
Did anyone else notice something unusual about the incident involving Tim Walz’s son, Gus, crying at the DNC? Gus was famously moved by his father’s success at the Democratic National Convention — moved to tears with a proud cry of, “That’s my dad!”
As a person who had a great dad, I’ll admit that Gus’s adoration moved me to tears. There is something truly special and wonderful about having a respect-worthy dad in your life. And it makes me happy to see Gus happy.
The talking heads of the Republican party did not like that. There were quick to make accusations that were incredibly out of line, as you can see from these tweets below:
Another one:
Unsurprisingly, when it didn’t land well, many of the bullies muted their posts.
Surprise! This did not go over well — and it’s a sign of changing times.
People were quick to point out that making fun of a special needs child for the weirdness of *checks notes* loving his parents isn’t very “family values.” It’s weird.
As it turns out, the bullying tactics and name-calling that we’ve gotten so used to since Donald Trump aren’t working as well as the GOP thought it would. In 2016 and 2020, mudslinging was still fairly effective.
Name-calling, making cruel laws to “own the libs,” and trolling others was working well. However, a lot of bigwigs weren’t expecting it to actually affect society the way it did.
We watched as politics had a real-time effect on our daily lives:
The overturn of Roe v. Wade led to women rethinking whether they wanted to continue dating. Women know they’ll be blamed for “choosing wrong” if they get raped or beaten by a partner. Now that men helped contribute to an end to abortion rights and maternal deaths are going through the roof, a large portion of women are rethinking dating altogether.
The vitriol of Q tore apart families and friendships. I know at least a dozen people who lost someone to Q-based brainwashing. Those friendships are gone for good. The Q followers also ruined their reputations. They are far lonelier than they were pre-Q, and they know it.
BIPOC MAGA voters started to realize that they were voting for white supremacy. No, being “one of the good ones” will not save you. Voting for a white nationalist party is never going to work out for you. Right now, both gay marriage and anti-miscegenation laws are on the chopping block thanks to the corrupt Supreme Court. It’s making minorities realize how much the far right hates them.
Anti-woman, Red Pill trolling pushed women to adopt the pro-celibacy 4B movement. This will be a topic of global conversation in upcoming years, I’m sure.
Bullying in the form of “Karen customers” started to make their rounds online, leading to a pushback among people. These days, a lot more people are ready to back people who want to defend themselves against violent, rude bullies and customers.
The cruelty of runaway inflation quashed the birth rate. Oops. No more serfs for the overclass. Oh well.
Truth be told, it shouldn’t surprise people that the bullying of yore stopped working. It’s disgusting behavior — and more importantly, it starts to wear at the fabric of a healthy society.
In a word, Americans are tired of seeing bullies win.
Bullying people who are weaker than you, especially when it comes to women, children, and the disadvantaged, is something that is very grotesque to witness. And studies confirm that people are grossed out by cruelty.
That’s why 60 percent of daters can’t stand people who are rude to a waiter. Rudeness and cruelty are major turn-offs, and rightfully so. A cruel person will likely turn that cruelty back onto you soon enough.
Watching America under Trump felt a lot like seeing President Biff in Back to the Future. It was this heartbreaking feeling that the bad guys were winning and that we were just moments away from losing everything.
As it turns out, this makes good people very angry. And angry good people get tired of seeing crybullies win. And that’s when you start seeing the real silent, moral majority of America stand up.
The DNC was proof that bullying is no longer the way Americans want to do things.
It’s hard to ignore the effect that the browbeating, shaming, trolling, and bashing that facists have on our collective. The overall tone of our country changed drastically — and I don’t like it.
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the palpable tension this country has in the air. I’m sick of seeing corporations run amok while the average American household struggles to buy food and pay rent on time.
I’m tired of feeling bullied, scared, and ripped off by kleptocrats, racists, misogynists, and losers who feel like they should be able to push their life decisions on others. America’s the land of the free. So let us be free to live how we want.
And at the DNC, we saw America by the numbers. Every single person who was fed up with GOP bully tactics seemed to want to attend the convention. If you were lucky, you actually got to attend.
The 2024 DNC smashed the RNC’s attendance numbers — a point Kamala Harris’s campaign was quick to note. But, it’s not only how many people showed up that shows how sick America is of bullies. It’s who.
The DNC had a seriously star-studded roll call that featured shocking guests.
Yes, the usual suspects were there: the Obamas, Democrat hotshots, and news reporters. However, there were certain guests that came as a shock to everyone.
Rappers and major celebrities. Hollywood was very present at the convention, to the point that the attendee list blew the RNC’s out of the water. Some of the attendees and performers included Pink, Spike Lee, TI, The Chicks, Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling, Eva Longoria and Lil’ Jon. For reference, the RNC had Hulk Hogan, Amber Rose, and Kid Rock. (So far for the whole “Trump is Cool” vibe, right?)
Former GOP Senator Adam Kinzinger. Kinzinger might have gotten other peoples’s respect for this, but I find it to be telling that he spoke out against Trump after he quit the politics game. Regardless, he came on to speak against Trump.
Former White House staffer and former Trump fan Stephanie Grisham. She came out to leak the text messages between her and Melania, which proved that the Trump family didn’t care about the violence that occurred on January 6th. She said, in no uncertain terms, that Trump is a liar and a bully.
Yes, there were a lot of GOP members who came forth to tell the truth about Trump. It’s quite apropos, because Trump was notoriously cruel to fellow Republicans. As it turns out, Republicans don’t like working for a bully, either.
For a long time, the GOP’s platform sold itself by being “cruel to the right people.”
If you thought the GOP’s platform seemed needlessly cruel, you’re correct. It’s designed to be that way. The cruelty is the point and for many Republican voters, that was the appeal.
Being a Republican was a good way to “hurt the right people” while still seemingly having a moral high ground against the weird folks of the DNC. GOP votership is an identity — and it’s an identity that prides itself on being exclusionary.
In 2019, the cracks in the moral “for your own good” GOP facade started to show when a Trump supporter went viral for saying, “He’s not hurting the people he’s supposed to be.”
The thing is, the platform started to turn against more and more people until it became clearly hostile toward anyone who wasn’t rich, white, male, and cishet.
The very people who ruled the GOP roost weren’t inured to it. Politicians under the GOP umbrella also started to backbite, squabble, and ratfuck each other. At one point, VP Mike Pence was almost killed by a gaggle of Q followers.
As it turns out, being cruel as your only feature doesn’t work very well. It eventually gets turned against you — and smart people don’t stay on that sinking ship, either.
The GOP is starting to realize there is a reason why school bullies never have friends.
Okay, I should add some nuance to this. Many “Mean Girls” keep their friends because they do intermittent cruelty. Mean Girls remain popular by excluding others, not necessarily showing their cruel streak.
School bullies who are always mean to others don’t have many friends. The reason why is simple: bullying is not attractive. Bullying is a weak man’s idea of strength, a cardboard dragon that ends up falling to pieces as soon as it rains.
Right now, we need real strength peppered with a dash of empathy. And that’s why the DNC was off the chain while the RNC could muster up a bunch of Trumpers alongside has-beens like Hulk Hogan.
There are few people who are as liked and as respected as the cool kid who stands up to the mean bully who pushes around the kid in the wheelchair. There are few people who tend to be welcomed almost universally — and they’re usually hometown heroes.
America is sick of appeasing bullies. So, we really shouldn’t be shocked that convention attendance reflected that. And moreover? We shouldn’t be shocked if Kamala and Tim end up being hometown heroes in every town.
totally on point
I'm voting for Jill Stein.
You might want to read the Green Party platform...
Dan Ellis