If This Election is Not Personal For You Yet, You're Not Paying Attention

There Is No Group (or Individual) in the U.S. Who Should Be Apathetic About Election 2024

All of us with hearts and souls were moved by watching Tim Walz’s son Gus express openly his pride in and love for his father on Wednesday night at the Democratic Convention.

Unfortunately, there are those among us (whose names do not deserve amplification) who have neither hearts nor souls. They took to social media to mock Gus. Gus is neurodivergent but honestly I don’t think it was that fact or MAGA’s traditional cruelty that lay at the heart of the attacks. I think it was because Walz’s son was so moved to see his Dad on the stage. Public displays of familial love must be unfamiliar for those who follow a man like Trump. For all the pronouncements about the importance of family from the likes of J.D. Vance, it is clear the right doesn’t much understand or care for any family ties other than trusts and bequests in a will.

In fact, here’s the reality, Trump’s family doesn’t much care for him and if Vance’s wife is not seething over his statements about her and her mother and families in general then she is clearly in a state of willful denial.

Many listeners were, however, deeply outraged by the attacks on Gus (and common decency). Some who were the parents or relatives of members of the neurodivergent community took to social media to express their understandable outrage. One such individual very reasonably said that the election had now, in a new way, become personal for him.

I get it.

What I don’t get in fact, is that the election might not be personal for anyone among us already.