{"id":38002,"date":"2024-10-31T17:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=38002"},"modified":"2024-11-01T06:17:56","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T06:17:56","slug":"with-tucker-carlson-elon-musk-and-donald-trump-republicans-strict-father-has-become-the-creepy-uncle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/with-tucker-carlson-elon-musk-and-donald-trump-republicans-strict-father-has-become-the-creepy-uncle\/","title":{"rendered":"With Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Republicans\u2019 \u2018strict father\u2019 has become the creepy uncle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Karrin Vasby Anderson<\/a>, Colorado State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Tucker Carlson, the reactionary pundit fired in 2023 from Fox News<\/a>, preceded Donald Trump at the Turning Point rally<\/a> in Duluth, Georgia, on Oct. 23, 2024, he roused attendees by tacitly likening Trump to a stern father and Democrats to a rebellious, \u201chormone-addled, 15-year-old daughter.\u201d Carlson insisted, \u201cthere has to be a point at which Dad comes home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the crowd erupted with cheers and applause, Carlson continued:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDad comes home and he\u2019s pissed. Dad is pissed. He\u2019s not vengeful. He loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them. Because they\u2019re his children. They live in his house. But he\u2019s very disappointed in their behavior. And he\u2019s going to have to let them know.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Initially, to a political communication scholar<\/a> like me who studies gender and political leadership, the riff sounded like it was shaped by a political philosophy identified by linguist George Lakoff<\/a> in the 1990s. That philosophy embraced the \u201cstrict father<\/a>\u201d model of governance, in which the government is akin to a stern patriarch who enforces obedience through punishment and cultivates the self-reliance necessary for people to live without a social safety net.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakoff attributed this philosophy to Republican presidents like Ronald Reagan and, later, George W. Bush<\/a>, as well as to the GOP\u2019s rank and file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Carlson\u2019s strict father departed from Lakoff\u2019s version in an important way. According to Lakoff, the strict father\u2019s moral authority is rooted in a personal ethic of self-discipline, temperance and restraint \u2013 characteristics he seeks to impart to those he is charged with protecting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carlson\u2019s strict father morphed into an unrestrained leader who takes pleasure in the pain of those he subordinates. As the crowd egged him on, Carlson role-played:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You\u2019ve been a bad girl. You\u2019ve been a bad little girl and you\u2019re getting a vigorous spanking, right now. And, no, it\u2019s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it\u2019s not. I\u2019m not going to lie. It\u2019s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You\u2019re getting a vigorous spanking because you\u2019ve been a bad girl.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In Carlson\u2019s re-telling, the MAGA Republican patriarch becomes a sadist who achieves pleasure by inflicting pain on an infantilized, feminized and vulnerable Democratic opponent. It was a perversion of an already sexist theory of governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sexism, sadism and sexualization\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In my research, I\u2019ve examined how sexism, sadism and sexualization<\/a> often coalesce in mainstream political discourse aimed at women candidates and women voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the 2024 presidential campaign heads into the home stretch, Trump and the acolytes who surround him have offered racist and sexist grievances<\/a> propelled by vulgarity as their closing argument<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On October 25, Elon Musk\u2019s pro-Trump PAC posted an ad<\/a> to the @America X account that Musk commandeered<\/a>, with the warning: \u201cAmerica really can\u2019t afford a \u2018C-Word\u2019 in the White House right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ad opens with a content advisory<\/a>: \u201cWARNING: THIS AD CONTAINS MULTIPLE INSTANCES OF THE \u2018C WORD.\u2019 VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The narrator announces, \u201cKamala Harris is a C word,\u201d as an off-screen audience gasps. The voice continues: \u201cYou heard that right. A big ole C word.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ad accuses Harris of being a \u201ctax-hiking, regulation-loving, gun-grabbing\u201d \u2013 then the narration pauses to reveal a cat in a Soviet military uniform against a bright red background. The cat swiftly transforms into a picture of Harris in a Soviet-style fur hat while the ad reveals that the \u201cC word\u201d is \u201cCommunist\u201d for \u201cComrade Kamala.\u201d So she\u2019s a tax-hiking, regulation-loving, gun-grabbing \u2026 Communist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York Times reported that, despite the final reveal, \u201cthe setup is an obvious play on a far more vulgar term<\/a> that begins with the same letter \u2013 an insult against women that is one of the most obscene words in American English.\u201d The ad\u2019s depiction of Harris as a cat \u2013 a pussycat \u2013 is a decidedly unsubtle echo of the implied insult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A history of insulting women<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not the first time that a Trump ally has invoked \u201cthe C word\u201d to insult a woman running for president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2008, Trump\u2019s friend, associate and future campaign strategist<\/a> Roger Stone launched a PAC<\/a> called \u201cCitizens United Not Timid: a 527 Organization To Educate the American Public About What Hillary Clinton Really Is.\u201d The important letters were bolded on the image Stone emblazoned on T-shirts: \u201cC-U-N-T.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fixating on women politicians\u2019 private parts is, sadly, nothing new. I\u2019ve written about it in books<\/a>, scholarly articles<\/a>, and for the popular press<\/a>. But in a recent stump speech in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Trump told a story about the size of professional golfer Arnold Palmer\u2019s penis<\/a>, ostensibly as a way to connect with audience members in Palmer\u2019s birthplace of Latrobe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The anecdote was more than a casual aside. It was a performance of patriarchal authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump said, \u201cArnold Palmer was all man<\/a>, and I say that in all due respect to women.\u201d His voice then turned guttural as he insisted, \u201cAnd I love women, but this guy, this guy, this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough.\u201d Trump then explained, \u201cwhen he took showers with the other pros they came outta there they said \u2018oh my god, that\u2019s unbelievable.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s choice to inject \u201clocker room talk<\/a>\u201d into his campaign discourse is a reminder of the Access Hollywood recording<\/a> that surfaced in 2016 and featured Trump bragging about \u201ctry[ing] to f\u2014\u201d a married woman, \u201cmov[ing] on her like a bitch,\u201d and grabbing women \u201cby the pussy,\u201d without consent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You will be protected\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Trump flouts consent whether he is the aggressor<\/a> or the ostensible protector. In an attempt to appeal to women voters, Trump recently added a promise to his stump speech<\/a>: \u201cYou will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger \u2026 You will be protected, and I will be your protector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Predictably, that paternalistic refrain earned so much scorn<\/a>, even his own advisers asked him to stop saying it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s response was telling. On Oct. 30, he told a rally audience<\/a> that he refused his staff\u2019s suggestion, saying, \u201cI said, well, I\u2019m gonna do it whether the women like it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doing it whether women like it or not is MAGA Republicans\u2019 closing argument in the 2024 campaign. They\u2019ve abandoned the \u201cstrict father\u201d and become the creepy uncle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karrin Vasby Anderson<\/a>, Professor of Communication Studies, Colorado State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karrin Vasby Anderson, Colorado State University When Tucker Carlson, the reactionary pundit fired in 2023 from Fox News, preceded Donald Trump at the Turning Point rally in Duluth, Georgia, on Oct. 23, 2024, he roused attendees by tacitly likening Trump to a stern father and Democrats to a rebellious, \u201chormone-addled, 15-year-old daughter.\u201d Carlson insisted, \u201cthere […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":38003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15534,8025,46,296,36,4],"tags":[479,6674,786,885,891,886,860,15285,14129,475],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38004,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38002\/revisions\/38004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}