We’ve got daddy issues in America, people. Or are they mommy issues? Whatever we’re calling them, the final stretch of the 2024 presidential contest has the campaigns telling us that the country is either about to get a hug or a spanking. Which one do you want?
I wish this were all an elaborate metaphor for the pitched rhetoric on the campaign trail, but it actually comes directly from former President Donald Trump’s rally in Duluth on Wednesday night, when Tucker Carlson told the Georgians in the audience that Trump is their daddy — “and Dad’s pissed.”
The problem, boys and girls, comes down to discipline. And with the Democrats in charge, Carlson said America has been acting like a 2-year-old “smearing the contents of his diaper on the wall,” or a “hormone-addled teenager” giving your parents the middle finger.
“No. There has to be a point at which Dad comes home,” Carlson said. “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.’”
It’s not going to hurt Dad more than it hurts you, America. It’s going to hurt you more. “And you earned this.”
Even more surreal than Carlson’s naughty girl-spanking metaphor was the unbridled reaction of the crowd at the Gas South Arena, which rose to its feet and chanted, “Dad-dy’s home!”
Carlson wasn’t done yet, because let’s face it, you’ve been a bad little girl. But listen carefully to what he said next about Democrats “rigging” the election this year.
“At the end of all of it, when they tell you they’ve won, you can look them straight in the face and tell them ‘NO, Dad’s home.’”
The metaphor may be creepy, but Carlson’s message was no joke. Donald Trump is strong and in charge and he’s going to make sure everything is going to be OK, including in the days after the election. If it means some of you get punished, that’s what justice looks like.
Republicans aren’t the only ones dabbling in daddy discussions on the campaign trail. One of Vice President Kamala Harris’ most newsworthy media appearances in the closing weeks of the campaign was an hourlong interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
The hit podcast’s title isn’t an instruction for little girls to call their dads for help. It’s a declaration that a woman can be so in charge, you can just call her “Daddy.”
Despite the cheeky title, the topics on the show with Harris were weighty and focused squarely on the millions of Gen Z women who listen to the show and whom Harris needs to turn out in droves. The vice president and host Alex Cooper talked about abortion rights, women’s role in society, and who can and should make the decisions in a young woman’s life. A hint: not her daddy.
“There is no denying that we are underserved and we are treated like second-class citizens to men,” Cooper said to Harris. “And we are going to talk about the economy and we are going to talk about all of this, but what is any of that good if we’re not taking care of the people that are able to produce the next generation?”
Harris described the election as a fundamental decision about who makes decisions in Americans lives, particularly on abortion rights.
“You don’t have to abandon your faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government shouldn’t be telling (a woman) what to do,” Harris said, adding later, “However you vote, don’t let anyone take your power from you.”
Credit: Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Those two images of the future of America — of a strong man coming home to take charge or a young woman with the power to make her own decisions — are part of what is driving the enormous gender gap in the election right now. According to The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s latest poll, a huge majority of men in Georgia — 59% — are ready to go back to the way things used to be under Trump. A majority of women — 55% — in Harris’ words, aren’t going back.
There are other issues, of course. The economy, especially the cost of living, immigration, character, democracy. But they all feed into the notion of what a leader should look like and how that leader should act.
The night after Trump held his rally in Duluth this week, Harris held her own in DeKalb County. At both events, an extraordinary New York Times interview with Trump’s former chief of staff, retired Marine General John Kelly, came up repeatedly.
Kelly told the Times he considers Trump a fascist, an authoritarian and someone who admires dictators. In his experience, Kelly warned, Trump “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world.”
In Clarkston, Harris said the decision between putting her or Trump in the Oval Office will have “brutally serious” consequences for every American.
“It’s either Donald Trump in there stewing over his enemies list, or me working for you, checking off my to-do list,” she said. “You have the power to make that decision.”
Trump’s event, on the other hand, dismissed Kelly’s warning as a case of sour grapes.
In a post on Truth Social just before the rally, Trump called Kelly “a LOWLIFE, and a bad General, whose advice in the White House I no longer sought.”
During his own remarks that night, Trump did not address Kelly’s prediction that he would act like a dictator if given a second chance. Nor did he talk about Carlson’s promise that Dad is coming home. Instead, he told the audience they can have everything they’ve ever wanted, if they elect him again.
“This will be America’s new golden age,” he said. “Every problem facing us can be solved, but now the fate of our nation is in your hands.”
It’s in your hands, America. Who’s your daddy?
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