It seems accidental, but there's no denying Tucker Carlson's timing. He was likely unaware that a new story about Jeffrey Epstein feeding sexual assault victims to Donald Trump had hit the news, when he warmed up a MAGA rally with an incest-and-pedophilia-tinged fantasy about the GOP candidate. Comparing liberals to a 15-year-old girl who slams her bedroom door in a tantrum, Carlson waxed poetic about the sexualized abuse of a minor.
"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," Carlson fantasized, while the crowd of young conservatives cheered wildly. Meanwhile, the Guardian was rolling out new sexual abuse accusations against Trump, this time in the context of his long friendship with notorious pedophile Epstein. Former model Stacey Williams, unaware of Epstein's sex crimes, dated the deceased criminal briefly in the 90s. During this time, she alleges, Epstein trapped her with Trump, who sexually assaulted her in front of Epstein. She says she saw Epstein and Trump share smiles during the assault.
Sexual abuse as a bonding ritual between men was also the theme of Carlson's "daddy" speech on Wednesday. While he repeatedly discussed the joy of giving a teenage girl "a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl," the rally crowd went nuts. When Trump took the stage, they chanted "daddy's home," in celebration of a man who a jury ruled sexually assaulted journalist E. Jean Carroll around the same time Williams claims to have been assaulted. Trump himself has bragged about sexually assaulting women, which he described in giddy detail on the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape.
Tucker Carlson, campaigning for Trump: “There has to be a point at which dad comes home…Dad comes home, and he's pissed…You know what he says? ‘You've been a bad little girl, and you're getting a vigorous spanking right now.’” pic.twitter.com/HGx9jXp3em
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) October 23, 2024
Trump's love of sexual violence turns most voters off, but as the rhetoric of sexual assault at the Georgia rally shows, the hardcore MAGA crowd loves this stuff. Sexual assault is a coward's way to feel powerful. Like kicking puppies or abusing children, it's about inflicting pain and humiliation on someone smaller, often after trapping them, as Trump did to Carroll in a department store dressing room. Or, in Carlson's fantasies, because the victim is your child — he made sure to emphasize 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 is perfect for Trump and his fans who want to live vicariously through this fantasy of domination.
This election will likely have a record-setting gender gap because Trump's bluntly sexist message is sucking in male voters while driving off women. From Carlson's spanking fantasies to Trump's misogynist insults of Vice President Kamala Harris to the use of "It's A Man's Man's Man's World" as walk-on music for his stump speech to his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, carping about "childless cat ladies," the message of the Trump campaign to men is not subtle: Vote for Trump and he will bring women to heel. As Paul Waldman argued in his newsletter, Trump is an aspirational figure because he "is sexist, racist, crude and lewd, and nobody can tell him not to be."
As the cheers at the Georgia rally show, this fantasy has a lot of power with Trump's voters. But, Waldman points out, when it comes to anything material Trump could offer male voters, the answer is "precisely nothing." He isn't interested in helping them get jobs or education or homes or wealth or anything that would substantively improve their lives. And despite the misogyny of the messaging, Trump can't "ban women from demanding that their partners treat them as equals or getting college degrees." Nor are men helped by the abortion bans that Trump caused with his first term and will expand if he returns to the White House. Sure, Trump's incel fans may have a dream of trapping a woman with pregnancy, but in reality, forced parenthood tends to be a detriment to both men's and women's economic futures.
What Trump is offering men is, I'd argue, even worse than nothing. The cheap thrill of misogyny offered in rhetoric like Carlson's is obviously fun for a lot of men. There's a sugar rush in blaming all your problems on women, screaming about how you'd like to inflict violence on them for what Carlson described as being "disobedient." But as adrenaline-pounding as virulent misogyny is in the moment, in the longer term, it's just going to make men's problems much worse.
We have all heard much about the male loneliness crisis, and how masculinity grifters like Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson exploit their audience's gender insecurities to sell them snake oil and right-wing politics. Trump is building on the same con job and, with his various interviews with masculinity influencers, tapping the same audience. What's less discussed, however, is how the "cures" offered by the influencers and the MAGA movement just make men's problems worse.
Can't get a woman to date you, much less marry you? Becoming a bile-spewing woman-hater will not help. Can't get a job or promoted at work? Refusing to develop the necessary people skills to get ahead because you think it's effeminate will keep you from moving ahead. Even the implicit promise of a male-oriented community is a phantasm. The hyper-competitiveness and shallowness of this toxic masculinity aren't conducive to developing true 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 play out in the story of Trump and Epstein's sociopathic imitation of a friendship. No doubt when they were sexually assaulting girls and women and grinning at each other, they felt powerful. (Though, again, nothing is more cowardly than picking on people who can't fight back.) But where they ended up is also telling. Epstein killed himself in prison. Trump, if he can't win the presidency, may also be headed to prison. But even if he saves himself from that fate, no one could mistake him for a happy person. He's angry and exhausted and unhealthy.
And for a person who is surrounded by hangers-on, he also seems very alone. Even with the threat of lost alimony hanging over her head, they can barely get Melania Trump to be around her husband, even for a photo-op. His kids wouldn't even show up for his trial until their absence became so notable it threatened their political and therefore economic futures. Whatever he's got going with Laura Loomer, it's clearly just a power grab from her and not authentic affection. A former adult film actress makes fun of his penis in public.
The worst part is that Trump, in all his deranged misery, is still better off than the foolish fans who use him as a role model. He's got money and a bunch of people who kiss his ring because he's got power. All they get is a chance to pay Elon Musk $8 a month for the privilege to call feminists "cat ladies" on Twitter. Not that they deserve any pity. Being a better man is free.
