Garbage People

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor N o, this isn’t about the nice folks who come by once a week and collect your trash. This is about people who seem only to exist so that you can look at yourself, no matter how bad you are, and say, “Well, at least I’m not that person …”

Yes, unfortunately, there are these people in the world. I call them “Garbage People,” because they have many of the same personality traits as, well, garbage – being offensive to the senses, polluting the world and just being hard to ignore no matter how you try.

Now, Garbage People are nothing new. They have been around as long as there have been people. You might run in to a Garbage Person from time to time out in the world. They are the kind of person who cuts you off and steals your parking spot just as you are about to pull in. They are the kind of person who finishes their double cheeseburger, fries and Coke in the car and then just rolls down the window and dumps it all out at the red light. They are the kind of person who feels entitled to being able to say and do whatever they want simply because they know that 99 times out of 100, there’s no one who will call them out on it.

They walk among us – unfortunately, they also have access to the internet.

Yes, that’s the main problem, I think, with Garbage People these days. They now have the ability to mass communicate. Now, if they only did this among themselves, that would be OK I guess. Let them tweet, comment, blog, etc. with one another until Jesus comes back, and I’m fine with that. The problem is, they aren’t content to just be Garbage People among Garbage People. No, they have all these platforms to spread their pollution – and they use them.

I’m not trying to be too political here but my current favorite example of a Garbage Person is Ann Coulter. Coulter has long been a controversial conservative pundit known for saying outlandish things in order to draw attention to herself and her agenda. This is not a knock against conservatives in general, the Republican party or anyone else but Coulter. This is a knock against her and her very, very gross way of thinking, acting and speaking.

It’s worth a Google, if you’re somehow unfamiliar with her long list of really awful and often stupid things that she has said. But the one thing that happened recently that really inspired this particular column happened just last week.

Yes, just after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention and accepted the party’s nomination for Vice President as Kamala Harris’s running mate, the camera offered a shot of the Walz family in the audience, which included a very emotional and proud Gus Walz, the 17-year-old son of Tim Walz. Gus, who has Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, ADHD and Anxiety Disorder.

Now, what Ann Coulter should have said, was nothing. What she actually said via social media was, “Talk about weird …” Which she posted along with this 17-year-old special needs kid smiling and crying and being happy for his Dad.

Pure… unadulterated… Garbage Person. And in true “it takes one to know one” fashion. She wasn’t the only alt-right talking head to spew forth hate speech directed at this child.

Conservative Wisconsin radio host Jay Weber posted, a similar photo with the caption, “Sorry, but this is embarrassing for both father and son… If the Walzs represent today’s American man, this country is screwed.”

Nothing but class, Jay. Weber actually took a hiatus from his own show to let the heat die down after his intentionally incendiary trash talk.

Here’s the best part (and by best, I mean worst): Both Coulter and Weber gave the absolute worst non-apologies after getting blowback (from both Democrats and Republicans).

Coulter said, “I took it down as soon as someone told me he’s ‘austistc,’ but it’s Democrats who go around calling everyone weird thinking it’s hilariously funny.”

So yes, Coulter deleted the post but A) did not apologize, B) misspelled “autistic” in her non-apology, C) decided it really wasn’t all that bad because those mean old Democrats called Donald Trump and J.D. Vance weird first.

As for Weber, he somehow managed to exclude the words “apology,” “sorry,” or any other words conveying regret, only posting, “I didn’t realize the kid was disabled, and have taken the post down.”

And yes, both of them seem to suggest that had Gus Walz been a “regular” 17-year-old kid, he would have been fair game for mockery for showing emotion in public after seeing his Dad become the nominee for Vice President of the United States.

Garbage People, indeed.