When donald trump descended that escalator to launch his first presidential campaign in 2015, his supporters believed he was just what this country needed – a fresh voice, untainted by the muck and mire of Washington, beholde to no one, able to see more clearly and articulate more directly what this country needed to make it great. Again.

Boy, were they wrong! What he did, instead, was thrust us into that swamp he promised to drain. And I’m not even talking about his politics and policies here. I’m talking about the lowest level of incivility we have ever experienced as a nation. Even before the debates of 2016, and forever after, it seems, trump engaged in schoolyard name-calling instead of substantive discussions to attack his opponents. “Little Marco,” “Crooked Hillary,” “Sleepy Joe; “ and now “Comrade Kamala,” “Laffin’ Kamala,” “Krazy Kamala” – all the while willfully mispronouncing her first name in an effort to diminish her, if not erase her entirely.

Sadly, trump’s coarseness doesn’t stop there. In a Bloomberg poll during his first campaign for president, voters were asked what bothered them most about him. Likely voters picked one action above all others: When donald trump mocked a reporter with a disability several months before.

Unfortunately, as Role Model in Chief, trump, nevertheless, generated a precipitous decline in kindness and compassion in this country, giving his minions permission to speak and act overtly on their prejudices and biases and ignorance.

Their latest target is Gus Walz, the 17-year old son of Governor Tim Walz, Democratic vice-presidential candidate. Gus has a non-verbal learning disorder, anxiety, and ADHD. During his father’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, he looked on with tears in his eyes. Good grief, a month ago, I’d never heard of Tim Walz, and I had tears in my eyes.

After describing the painful and heart-breaking fertility treatments his wife and he endured before the birth of their daughter, Walz turned to his family and said, “Hope, Gus and Gwen, you are my entire world. And I love you.” Crying, Gus jumped up, pointed, and said, “I love you, Dad,” followed immediately and proudly by, “That’s my dad!”

And for that, this boy has been bullied.

Re-appropriating Tim Walz’s observation that has since become a meme, conservative columnist and general cultural irritant Ann Coulter mocked Gus’s tears. “Talk about weird,” she wrote on X. The message has since been deleted amid an angry backlash, though Coulter did not directly apologize for her post. “I took it down as soon as someone told me he’s [autistic], but it’s Democrats who go around calling everyone weird thinking it’s hilariously funny… ‘Democrats are the ones who decided it’s fine to call people ‘weird,’” she added.

Not “people,” Ann. Just trump and j.d. vance.

Though the response to Gus’ tears has been touchingly positive, with parents, including fathers, writing that they hope to inspire such love and pride from their own children, Mike Crispi, a trump supporter and podcaster from New Jersey, mocked Walz’s “stupid crying son” on X and added: “You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats.”

Yeah, Mike. Maybe what we need is more “puffy beta males.” Look what your puffy alpha male has wrought!

Alec Lace, a trump supporter who hosts a podcast about fatherhood, took his own jab at Gus and, by  not-so-subtle implication, his father as well: “Get that kid a tampon already,” he wrote, apparently referring to a Minnesota law that Walz signed as governor that required schools to provide free menstrual supplies to students.

Alec Lace has four children – three sons and a “princess.” Good luck growing up in that house, kids.

Jay Weber, a conservative Milwaukee radio host, made a now-deleted post on X criticizing the Walz family. “If the Walzs (sic) represent today’s American man, this country is screwed: ‘Meet my son, Gus. He’s a blubbering b—- boy. His mother and I are very proud.’” After removing the post, Weber apologized and claimed he didn’t know Gus had a learning disability.

So help me to understand you, Jay. It’s okay for Gus to cry because he has a learning disability? Otherwise he’s a “blubbering b- – – – – boy”?

Maybe if American men had cried on Election Day 2016 or on January 6^th, this country would be in a better place.

And true to form, the trump campaign has not addressed these posts. Why didn’t he dismiss the comments as disrespectful to the Walz family, and Gus in particular? Why, as a father, did he not, for a moment, consider how he would feel if commentators publicly belittled Barron?

Because there’s nothing in trump’s character to suggest that he cares about anyone except himself.

Not even our character as a nation.