Gus Walz loves his dad, Tim. Anyone who doesn’t see the beauty of this is weird. – MASHAHER

Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch’s opinion and community engagement editor.

Gus Walz loves his dad.

That should have been clear to anyone — Republican, Democrat, or independent — who saw him sob as his dad, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, accepted the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nomination Wednesday night.

It shouldn’t matter that Gus Walz has ADHD, an anxiety disorder and a non-verbal learning disorder.

It shouldn’t matter that he is just 17.

It shouldn’t matter if his father is a Democrat or if he is Republican.

Gus was a son proud of his dad and not afraid to show it.

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It was lovely.

Ann Coulter apparently thought it was “weird.”

That’s the word that came to the conservative commentator’s mind after she saw the moment so many others found heartwarming.

Nothing in her paused. She just pounced.

“Talk about weird…,” Coulter tweeted, according to The Daily Beast and others.

More: Gus Walz broke the internet with his tearful love for his dad. Then the bullying began

Cruelty is gross

Coulter deleted the post, but not before it was screengrabbed. I am not surprised she went so low.

Coulter and bullies like her do not get the basic “Real Housewives” franchise rule: kids are off limits.

X user Marcellajay understands. 

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“I am conservative and all these vile comments and attacks on a poor kid with special needs is unacceptable and must be called out. It isn’t weird, he loves his dad and is proud of him,” she wrote.

Cruelty is gross. Human decency should not be a thing reserved only for those you agree with.

Some may dismiss this as Ann Coulter being Ann Coulter, but this is not about Ann Coulter or others who have reportedly said nasty things about Gus Walz.

There are far too many adults among us that couldn’t obey a grade school’s non-bullying policy. They have been emboldened in the digital age to spew meanness and do so without even a thought. Coulter and others found Gus Walz an easy target.

How boring, uncreative and predictable.

When called out they regret it.

Take Wisconsin radio host Jay Weber.

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

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Weber deleted the tweet after catching heat.

“I didn’t realize the kid was disabled, and have taken the post down,” Weber wrote.

In world is right to call anyone — let alone any kid — a “bitch boy?”

None of this is normal

Politics has often been nasty.

Look only to the 1828 presidential matchup between John Quincy Adams and rival Andrew Jackson for proof.

Jackson’s team started a vicious rumor that when he was an ambassador, Adams pimped his children’s nanny to the Russian czar as a royal mistress.

Adams’ side went deeper in the murk.

They called Jackson’s mom a “common prostitute” and claimed her seven children were fathered by a “mulatto man.” And that’s perhaps not the worst of it. Adams’ crew called Jackson’s wife Rachel fat, an “American jezebel, a convicted adulteress and a “dirty black wench.”

That was bad. These times are even worse.

In some minds, it is “perfectly OK” to make fun of a reporter with a disability as former President Donald Trump once did or mock women who do not have children as his running mate JD Vance has.

To a far lesser extent, even the viral unfounded joke about Vance having sex with couches is a sign of how low we’ve sunk.

Can you imagine anyone saying that about Dwight Eisenhower?

The nastiness should be (I am not holding my breath) dialed way back across the board. It must stop when it comes to kids. Belittling a child — one with disabilities or not — for expressing love is in the sewer.

As many as 2 million children and adolescents in this nation might have non-verbal learning disorder, according to the Journal of American Medical Association. Experts say they have difficulties processing visual and non-verbal information.

Who is Gus Walz? What is a non-verbal learning disorder?

Here’s what to know about this lesser-known but not uncommon disability.

I can only guess why Coulter saw something negative when Gus Walz appeared on the screen, and tears of joy fell from his eyes.

Did she need her glasses?

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

“That’s my dad,” Gus responded.

There was nothing weird about that, Ann.

Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch’s opinion and community engagement editor.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ann Coulter, others are weird for belittling Tim Walz’s son Gus