‘Daddy’s Home’: Tucker Carlson’s Weird Troll Distills Trump’s False Promise to Male Voters

It seems random, but it is true I’m not denying Tucker Carlson’s timing. He probably wasn’t aware of it new story about Jeffrey Epstein feeding sexual assault victims Down Donald Trump made news when he heated up a MAGA rally with incest- and pedophilia-tinged fantasies about the GOP candidate. Comparing liberals to a 15-year-old girl who slams her bedroom door in anger, Carlson waxed poetic about sexual abuse of a minor.

“When dad comes home, you know what he says? «You were a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and now you’re being spanked vigorously,’” Carlson fantasized as the crowd of young conservatives cheered wildly. Meanwhile, The Guardian featured new allegations of sexual harassment against Trump, this time in the context of his long friendship with the notorious pedophile Epstein. Unaware of Epstein’s sex crimes, former model Stacey Williams briefly dated the late criminal in the 1990s. During this time, she claims Epstein imprisoned her with Trump, who sexually assaulted her in front of him. She says she saw Epstein and Trump smiling during the attack.

Sexual abuse as a bonding ritual between men was also the subject of Carlson’s “daddy” speech on Wednesday. Even though he repeatedly mentioned the joy of giving a teenager “a hard slap because you were a bad girl,” the audience at the rally went wild. As Trump took the stage, they chanted “daddy’s house” in honor of the man whose jury ruled that journalist E. Jean Carroll committed sexual assault around the same time Williams claims he suffered the assault. Trump himself has bragged about sexually assaulting womenwhich he described in breathtaking detail on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.

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Trump’s penchant for sexual violence turns off most voters, but as the sexual assault rhetoric at the Georgia rally shows, the die-hard MAGA crowd loves it. Sexual assault is a coward’s way of feeling powerful. Like puppy kicking or child abuse, it is about inflicting pain and humiliation on someone smaller, often after trapping them, as Trump did to Carroll in a department store changing room. Or, in Carlson’s fantasy, because the victim is your child – he emphasized that the children “live in his house” – she has nowhere to escape. Sexual abuse is for men who are too weak and pathetic to pick on people their own size. So it’s perfect for Trump and his fans who want to vicariously experience this domination fantasy.

These choices there will likely be a record gender gap because Trump’s bluntly sexist message is siphoning off male voters while driving out women. From Carlson’s spanking fantasies to Trump’s misogynistic insults towards Vice President Kamala Harris for use “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World” in the form of walking music for his stump speech to his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, in which he worried about “childless cat ladies,” the Trump campaign’s message to men is not subtle: vote for Trump and he will bring women to rights. How Paul Waldman argued in his newsletterTrump is an aspirational figure because “he is sexist, racist, vulgar and lewd and no one can stop him.”

As the cheers at the Georgia rally show, this fantasy has a lot of power among Trump voters. But as Waldman points out, in terms of anything material Trump could offer male voters, the answer is “exactly nothing.” He is not interested in helping them get jobs, education, homes, wealth, or anything that would significantly improve their lives. And despite the misogyny in the message, Trump cannot “prohibit women from demanding that their partners treat them as equals or pursuing college degrees.” Men are also not helped by the abortion bans that Trump introduced during his first term and which will expand if he returns to the White House. Sure, Trump’s incel fans may dream of imprisoning a pregnant woman, but in reality, forced parenthood tends to harm the economic futures of both men and women.

What Trump offers men is, in my opinion, worse than nothing. The cheap thrill of misogyny offered in rhetoric like Carlson’s is, of course, amusing to many men. Blaming all your problems on women and screaming about how you wish you could inflict violence on them for what Carlson called “disobedience” is feverish. But while virulent misogyny gets the adrenaline pumping in the moment, in the long run it will only make men’s problems worse.

We’ve all heard a lot about the male loneliness crisis and how masculinity fraudsters like Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson exploit their viewers’ gender uncertainty to sell them snake oil and right-wing politics. Trump relies on the same fraud and, with his various interviews with influential figures in the field of masculinitytouching the same audiences. However, less is said about the fact that the “medicines” offered by influencers and the MAGA movement only worsen men’s problems.

Can’t you get a woman to date you, much less marry you? Becoming a bile vomiting woman hater won’t help. Can’t find a job or get promoted at work? Refusing to develop the interpersonal skills you need to succeed because you think it’s effeminate will keep you from moving forward. Even the hidden promise of a male-oriented community is a fantasy. The hypercompetitiveness and shallowness of this toxic masculinity is not conducive to developing real friendships with other men. When you embrace anti-social behavior as your model of masculinity, you can’t be surprised when no one wants to be around you.

We can see this in Trump and Epstein’s history of sociopathic emulation of friendship. No doubt, when they sexually harassed girls and women and smiled at each other, they felt powerful. (Though there’s nothing more cowardly than picking on people who can’t fight.) But where they ended up is also telling. Epstein committed suicide in prison. Trump, if he fails to win the presidency, could also go to prison. But even if he escapes this fate, no one will mistake him for a happy man. He is angry, exhausted and unhealthy.

And for a person surrounded by addicts, it also seems very lonely. Even with the threat of losing alimony hanging over her head, they can barely get Melania Trump to accompany her husband, even for a photo shoot. His children did not even appear at trial until their absence became so noticeable that it threatened their political and therefore economic future. Whatever he has in common with Laura Loomer, it’s clearly just a desire to gain power from her, not genuine affection. Former adult film actress publicly makes fun of his penis.

The worst thing is that Trump, for all his insane misery, is still better off than the stupid fans who look up to him as a role model. He has money and a bunch of people kissing his ring because he has power. All they get is the chance to pay Elon Musk $8 a month to call feminists “cat ladies” on Twitter. Not that they deserved any mercy. Being a better person is free.