Why fascism wasn't a deal breaker

As the 2024 presidential campaign was winding down, Tucker Carlson gave a speech at a Turning Point rally for Trump in which he compared the opposition to a disobedient teenage girl.

There has to be a point at which 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…. 

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 gonna hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it's not. I'm not gonna lie. It's gonna 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. And it has to be this way."

The crowd loved it. And when Trump came on stage, they chanted, "Daddy's home!"

As Talia Lavin noted at the time, it was a "florid illustration of the way patriarchal family dynamics and punishment stand at the center of contemporary right-wing morality." She goes on to suggest that Carlson's words "had a special resonance for a particular breed of authoritarian conservative: members of the evangelical right," in which "tens of millions of Americans have experienced, firsthand, the consequences of disobeying Daddy."

In the 1970s James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, gave credence to all of that with his book, "Dare to Discipline." As part of this so-called "biblical parenting," Dobson recommended regular corporal punishment of disobedient children from the ages of 18 months to 10 years old, with a spanking “of sufficient magnitude to cause tears.”

For Dobson, the purpose of all of this was to break a child's will, which he defined as a "passion for independence" and a "deeply ingrained desire to have his or her way." The end goal is to force the willful child into obedience, which is achieved either through violence, or the threat of violence. 

Of course, "biblical parenting" mirrors the right wing view of God and how he interacts with his children. That one goes back a very long time. For example, in 1741 Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon titled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." It employs intense, vivid, and frightening imagery to depict the torments of Hell to create a sense of fear and urgency, emphasizing the wrath of an angry God who demands obedience.

Listen to any evangelist today and they'll repeat the same message: "You are a sinner and God is angry. If you don't obey him, he'll send you to hell for eternal punishment." If it sounds like abusive authoritarianism, that's because it is.

Is it any wonder that right wing evangelicals are uncomfortable with a democracy that promises independence to people in the name of freedom and equality? Or that they are much more comfortable with an authoritarian leader who foments fear and promises to punish those who are disobedient? As Katherine Stewart put it:

The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a direct attack on democracy itself.

They want it all. And in Mr. Trump, they have found a man who does not merely serve their cause, but also satisfies their craving for a certain kind of political leadership.

It should come as no surprise then, that fascism wasn't a deal breaker. To the contrary, it's what they've been looking for.