From Maggie Astor’s reporting in the New York Times (10/24) on Tucker Carlson’s introduction of Trump at a rally in Duluth, GA on Wednesday night:
If you allow your hormone-addled 15 year old daughter to slam the door and give you the finger, you’re going to get more of it. There has to be a point at which dad comes home.
At this point the crowd erupted into raucous cheers.
Dad comes home and he’s missed. He’s not vengeful, he loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them. And when dad gets home, you know And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ver been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.
Clearly this struck a chord with the crowd. Later, when Trump came on stage, they screamed “Daddy’s home” and “Daddy Don.” Sigmund Freud almost rose from his grave.
James Singer, a Harris campaign spokesman, declared the speech “fucking weird.” And for a lot of people, it certainly was. But for Trump’s cult-like supporters, Carlson’s spanking fantasy encapsulates everything they love about the presidential candidate: the paternalism, the toxic masculinity, the lust for violence and the thirst for revenge.
******
Astor leaves something out (although she does make the Freud reference). When daddies spank 15 yr. old daughters (bare bottom is most vigorous) who are “hormone addled” but “bad little girls,” there is a sexual element. Many men in that Duluth, GA audience got that, consciously, unconsciously, and/or physiologically.
It’s beyond paternalism. It may be dressed up as paternalism (bad enough) but it’s also about sexual domination, men re-establishing complete control over women’s bodies. The 15 yr. old has no autonomy in the matter. She is unable to refuse. Daddy will grab her body, pull down her pants, put her over his knees, and do just as he pleases.
Trump is a sexual assaulter. He bragged about it. When he controlled the Miss Teen USA pageant, he walked in on the 15 yr. old girls who were in various stages of undress and told them, “Don’t worry dears, I’ve seen it all before.” He has said about his daughter, Ivanka, “she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
Carlson knows what he’s doing as a political speaker. His introductory remarks are inseparable from Trump’s history. Carlson was fluffing Trump as a dominant male who does what he wants when he wants. For many MAGA men Trump is the ultimate role model who scoffs at women and is sexually aggressive with them. A man’s man, like Arnold Palmer.
The control of women’s bodies via the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision has created in many states a dreamscape for members of rape culture: no matter how a woman is impregnated she won’t be able to get an abortion (she has no autonomy in the matter). So, if a stepfather rapes his 15 yr. old stepdaughter, maybe when he gets a little excited while spanking her (so it’s really her fault!), she will have to bear the child and become even more economically dependent on him.
It's toxic masculinity. It’s a war on women. And it is rape culture.
****
more at jimhannon.substack.com