With Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Republicans’ ‘strict father’ has become the creepy uncle

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, “hormone-addled, 15-year-old daughter.” Carlson insisted, “there has to be a point at which Dad comes home.”

After the crowd erupted with cheers and applause, Carlson continued:

“Dad comes home and he’s pissed. Dad is pissed. He’s not vengeful. He loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them. Because they’re his children. They live in his house. But he’s very disappointed in their behavior. And he’s going to have to let them know.”

Initially, to a political communication scholar like me who studies gender and political leadership, the riff sounded like it was shaped by a political philosophy identified by linguist George Lakoff in the 1990s. That philosophy embraced the “strict father” 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.

Lakoff attributed this philosophy to Republican presidents like Ronald Reagan and, later, George W. Bush, as well as to the GOP’s rank and file.

But Carlson’s strict father departed from Lakoff’s version in an important way. According to Lakoff, the strict father’s moral authority is rooted in a personal ethic of self-discipline, temperance and restraint – characteristics he seeks to impart to those he is charged with protecting.

Carlson’s 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:

“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 a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl.”

In Carlson’s 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.

‘Sexism, sadism and sexualization’

In my research, I’ve examined how sexism, sadism and sexualization often coalesce in mainstream political discourse aimed at women candidates and women voters.

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

On October 25, Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC posted an ad to the @America X account that Musk commandeered, with the warning: “America really can’t afford a ‘C-Word’ in the White House right now.”

The ad opens with a content advisory: “WARNING: THIS AD CONTAINS MULTIPLE INSTANCES OF THE ‘C WORD.’ VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.”

The narrator announces, “Kamala Harris is a C word,” as an off-screen audience gasps. The voice continues: “You heard that right. A big ole C word.”

The ad accuses Harris of being a “tax-hiking, regulation-loving, gun-grabbing” – 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 “C word” is “Communist” for “Comrade Kamala.” So she’s a tax-hiking, regulation-loving, gun-grabbing … Communist.

The New York Times reported that, despite the final reveal, “the setup is an obvious play on a far more vulgar term that begins with the same letter – an insult against women that is one of the most obscene words in American English.” The ad’s depiction of Harris as a cat – a pussycat – is a decidedly unsubtle echo of the implied insult.

A history of insulting women

It’s not the first time that a Trump ally has invoked “the C word” to insult a woman running for president.

In 2008, Trump’s friend, associate and future campaign strategist Roger Stone launched a PAC called “Citizens United Not Timid: a 527 Organization To Educate the American Public About What Hillary Clinton Really Is.” The important letters were bolded on the image Stone emblazoned on T-shirts: “C-U-N-T.”

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

The anecdote was more than a casual aside. It was a performance of patriarchal authority.

Trump said, “Arnold Palmer was all man, and I say that in all due respect to women.” His voice then turned guttural as he insisted, “And I love women, but this guy, this guy, this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough.” Trump then explained, “when he took showers with the other pros they came outta there they said ‘oh my god, that’s unbelievable.’”

Trump’s choice to inject “locker room talk” into his campaign discourse is a reminder of the Access Hollywood recording that surfaced in 2016 and featured Trump bragging about “try[ing] to f—” a married woman, “mov[ing] on her like a bitch,” and grabbing women “by the pussy,” without consent.

‘You will be protected’

Trump flouts consent whether he is the aggressor or the ostensible protector. In an attempt to appeal to women voters, Trump recently added a promise to his stump speech: “You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger … You will be protected, and I will be your protector.”

Predictably, that paternalistic refrain earned so much scorn, even his own advisers asked him to stop saying it.

Trump’s response was telling. On Oct. 30, he told a rally audience that he refused his staff’s suggestion, saying, “I said, well, I’m gonna do it whether the women like it or not.”

Doing it whether women like it or not is MAGA Republicans’ closing argument in the 2024 campaign. They’ve abandoned the “strict father” and become the creepy uncle.