One of the most striking moments of the Presidential Campaign was 17-year-old Gus Walz’s emotional reaction last night to his father’s speech.

His tearful exclamation, “That’s my dad,” as his father accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for Kamala Harris’s Vice President, excited millions of people and is a powerful testament to the changing perceptions of gender and masculinity in politics.

He is teaching the world what it means to be a man.

While Governor Walz’s speech was significant, his son’s emotional display conveyed a larger message. It symbolizes the changing roles of men and women in politics, with men embracing their emotions and women shattering their glass ceilings.  

Gender in politics is rapidly changing before our eyes. To me, that’s the big news coming out of Chicago. Men never cried in public and women were seen as weak if they did.

Democratic politicians and pollsters have noted a shift in public sentiment, with most voters now much more accepting of a woman president (excluding her opponent). This was evident during the convention, where I witnessed at least a half dozen female speakers openly express their emotions, often crying,  and it was met with understanding and acceptance. This added significant warmth and emotion to Kamala Harris’s campaign for President.

Hillary Clinton, who knows about such things, believes the time for women to rise is here; the glass ceiling seems almost archaic.

Men are different. They are by far the most violent, greedy, and emotionally blocked of the species. Maybe not so much anymore; it would be a great gift to the world if they were changing. It might even save the world.

Trump is turning out to be the best thing that could possibly happen to Kamala Harris. Donald Trump doesn’t get it and can’t grasp how to stop it. He looks like a musty old Buffalo lost in the plains and running from one circle to another. Harris, to him, is dumb, lazy, dishonest, and a potential hell on earth. He has also recently shared with us the belief that he is even better-looking than she is and much brighter. So, yeah, I get the feeling he’s not rejoining the mushrooming women’s revolution, but he is helping to strengthen it every time he opens his mouth.

I was mesmerized by the comparison of how men are viewed in the two different political conventions. Trump has long been a rabid fan of Hulk Hogan, the very macho world champion wrestler. He has  called Hogan “the toughest man on earth.”

If there is a biological opposite to 71-year-old Hulk Hogan and Donald Trump regarding men, it might be Tim Walz and his 17-year-old son. Gus cried for his father, and the Hulk ripped off his shirt on national television to praise Donald Trump as a “real American hero.” He was a prime-time speaker.

So yes, I guess there is a natural choice after all. This time, Trump shot himself in another foot.

 

(Hulk Hogan at the Republican Convention. I’m still trying to figure out what I should learn from this famous thinker. I don’t want to take my shirt off on TV)

Tim Walz is changing the very idea of what it means to be a man. A soldier for 24 years, a hugger and gun lover, and a much-loved football coach,

He showed the shocked political workers a new way to be tough. He cries often, hugs and lots, and his son is not embarrassed or reluctant to stand up in front of millions of people and sob while shouting out praise for his Dad.  As a teacher, he didn’t persecute gay students; he protected them. Ron DeSantis would have called him “woke” and got him fired.

I’m both touched and impressed. The world is sick of macho men; it is becoming clear that they are running from the fact that the plant is on fire and continuing their wars, dominations, assaults on democracy, continuous persecution of women and other “others,” and vilifying immigrants as racists and murderers.

Walz says there is a better way for real men to be strong: to embrace tolerance, cooperation, open emotion, and the love of family and neighbors.

Walz seems to love a lot of people, and a lot of people love him. I have trouble imagining Donald Tromp tolerating his sons bawling in front of him or even being around him much.

Honestly, I can’t imagine my daughter standing up and crying about how wonderful her Dad is. She’s just old enough to come from a different world, and I wonder if I was half the father as Walz seems to be.

My notion of masculinity has always seemed strange to other men.

I believe that a real man supports his daughters and wife or partners in living the lives they want and stops confusing cruelty and violence with masculinity.

Real men promote love and peace and free their emotions. Gus Walz and his dad are teaching us what it means to be a real man. Our job is not to suppress the liberation of women but to endorse and support them whenever we can. That’s what love is to me. It can be liberating to be a man.

We don’t need to be in charge all the time; we need to admit that we have blown it, and it’s time to replace greedy and destructive macho with something gentler and kindler.

Gus’s dead loves guns, but even more, he loves keeping his children alive and safe. To me, that is what a real man does.

After Gus’s touching tears, I went on Instagram and TikTok to see how our other too-often-forgotten world reacted. Would the young sneer? Teenaged boys are famous for that. No, that is left only for male political leaders and legislators.

Governor Walz and his son are scaring the piss out of them. If he is the new way, they are doomed.

Within minutes, I saw that the cutaway of Gus crying (his sister Hope was holding up her hands in a heart) was drawing hundreds of thousands of posts and views, heading towards at least a million after midnight. Most were accompanied by the hashtag#ThatsMyDad. Another hashtag, #TeamGus, was trending on X on Thursday morning.

Things really are changing. I keep reading about how tight and close this race is, yet it seems like all of the energy, enthusiasm, and change is pouring out of one side while the other keeps getting meaner, stranger, and angrier. I don’t see it turning around.

When I think about the significant time the Republican Party gave 71-year-old Hulk Hogan, one of the most traditional macho figures in America, and the very real and profoundly touching love a 17-year-old teenager gave his father, I think the winner of this election is becoming clearer and clearer all the way. And that doesn’t even take into account Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Taylor Swift, who is coming soon to a rally near you.

You can get your tissues out, and feel free to use them. It seems accurate: The cat woman are out of their hiding spaces, and things are changing.