"Daddy's Home"?

 Okay, so I've written before about Tucker Carlson's bizarre "spanking" tirade at one rally during the 2024 Trump campaign. How could I not? It's such a rich vein of unintentionally self-revealing psychological material to mine. Of course, at the simplest level, Tucker's delectation over the idea of Trump bending America over his knee and giving the restive democratic public a "spanking" was a fantasy of male violence and power. It was, most obviously, something for a sadist to get off to. 

But what also struck me about it as a big give-away was that Tucker simultaneously casts himself in the receiving position. He is pulling back the psychological curtain and letting us know that he actually longs for "Daddy" to come home too. And, of course, his boot-licking adoration of various would-be strongmen, including Trump and Putin, fits the mould. On the one hand, therefore, Tucker's "spanking" fantasy is one of violent domination; but it is also—at the same time—one of obedient submission. 

Indeed, Tucker and Trump's actual plans as soon as they take office appear to be to capitulate as rapidly as possible to whatever Vladimir Putin wants. Just as the pair of them long to lord it over women, minorities, and liberals in the United States, they also wish in their turn to be dominated by someone even stronger. Listen to the way Trump talks worshipfully about every minor despot around the world who tortures and imprisons his foes—Xi, Kim, etc. Trump can't wait to grovel before them. 

If I had the graphic design skills, therefore (or knew more about how to circumvent current ethical and content restrictions on AI image generators), I know exactly the political cartoon I would create to encapsulate our moment. It would feature a Vladimir Putin draped in chains and holding two whips—the ultimate "leather daddy." And Trump and Tucker would be bound on all fours before him, ready for the "spanking" they crave. The caption would read: "Daddy's Home." 

Harold Pinter, in a poem he wrote during the Bush era, once likened the quote-unquote "Special Relationship" between the UK and US governments to that of a sub-dom kink. The UK could help the US destroy and bomb nations weaker than themselves, so long as the UK also fellated their more powerful US masters. Some similar trade-off appears to be happening here: Trump and Tucker submit to their Russian overlord, so long as they get to terrorize others beneath them in their home country. 

Of course, this is always the implied trade-off in fascism. The innate fascist sees the world as organized in a linear hierarchy of power—an endlessly multiplying series of natural subs and doms. And within this hierarchy, they get as much pleasure from the idea of submitting to those above them as they do lording it over those beneath them. "Romantic prostration," to quote Heinrich Mann, "at the feet of a master who just confers enough of his power upon his subject to enable them to crush lesser men." 

I was reading Mann's Man of Straw (the "Untertan") this past weekend, whence this quote derives. And what is so remarkable about the book is that Mann (elder brother of Thomas) perfectly understands this psychological aspect of fascism—even though his book was published in 1918. Mann's dissection of the psychological underpinnings of Wilhelmine-era Kaiser-worship turns out to be eerily prescient. The same phenomenon would, a few decades later, explain the rise of German Führer-worship as well. 

Erich Fromm, in Escape from Freedom, argues that the psychological profile of the typical fascist is someone who grew up in an authoritarian household, with a father who demanded total obedience as the condition of his love. A person who grows up under such circumstances, Fromm argues, develops a lifelong ambivalence toward authority: a deep seething resentment, as well as a sense of internalized guilt for that resentment and a desire to be punished. 

This explains how such a person can both be so "rebellious" and have such a strong desire to submit. It explains why Tucker and the other Trumpists can be forever railing against "elites," yet simultaneously pine openly for a strong "Daddy" figure to come home and bend them over the knee. They reject authorities who attempt to govern with moderation, fairness, and reason—because they can only see such authorities as "weak." But they welcome the chance to submit to someone "strong."

All of this, remarkably, is foreshadowed in Mann's novel—even though he was writing decades before Fromm, and years before fascism even had a name. Mann's protagonist, Diederich, is the quintessential proto-fascist. While he wavers from one political opinion to another, his only true belief is in the natural rights of power. He worships whichever party happens to have the upper hand at the moment, because he sees might as its own justification. And, Mann notes, this all has its roots in childhood. 

Diederich too, after all, grows up with a "Daddy" who punishes him. Mann writes about his ambivalent relationship to these parental and school authorities who would boss him around. He secretly resented them; and yet, also relished the chance to be punished for his rebellions, Mann observes. "I have got a beating, but from my papa," the child Diederich thinks at one point. "You would be glad to be beaten by him, but you are not good enough for that." (Penguin Classics edition; no translator identified.)

And again: "Whenever there was any disparaging comment on the ruling powers he had a guilty feeling of relief, as if something deep down in himself, like a kind of hatred, had hastily and furtively satisfied its hunger." That is the ambivalence toward authority showing itself. But Diederich resolves and displaces his guilty feelings by then snitching on his classmates, and ensuring that the powers that be have a chance to punish them—thereby vindicating his sense of the natural rights of authority. 

As a result, he ends up rejecting authority that he perceives as "sentimental" or feminine, but submits eagerly and with pleasure to the domination of masculine strength. Therefore, when the Kaiser begins to assert the more anti-parliamentarian personalistic rule that would characterize the Wilhelmine era, Diederich finds all of his political wishes fulfilled. The "sentimental" rule of the old-fashioned liberals in the novel, like Herr Buck, has been replaced by the "masculine" rule of raw power. 

Diederich first becomes excited when he sees the emperor personally confront a protesting mob of the unemployed on horseback. Shades here of how many of our own contemporary Untertans—some of whom were willing to pose as "liberals" when that was still the default way to get ahead—suddenly started to speak adoringly of Trump when they saw him raise a bloodied fist at the rally this summer, after surviving an assassination attempt. "Badass," Mark Zuckerberg declared it. 

Watching erstwhile liberal "tech elites" grovel before Trump, in the wake of the election, one sees just how many little Diederichs we have running America today. Trump's bloody fist salute seems to have provoked in Zuckerberg the same reflections as Diederich watching the emperor: "There on the horse rode Power [...] The Power which transcends us and whose hoofs we kiss. Against it we are impotent, for we all love it! We have it in our blood, for in our blood is submission." 

And the obverse, as we have seen, of submission to Power is dominance over those who are perceived as having less power. Diederich is an unremitting bully and petty tyrant to everyone he sees as lower than himself in the hierarchy of domination—such as his wife. And this too is baked into the theory: we must be, thinks Diederich, "merciless towards those who are remote beneath us, and triumphing even when we ourselves are crushed, for thus does power justify our love for it!" 

It really doesn't take a brilliant mind to see the connection to the psychology Tucker was articulating in his "spanking" rant. Everything about Tucker and Trump's rhetoric signals a Diederich-style worship of raw power. Trump is forever fantasizing about police extra-judicially executing shoplifters in the streets. He has openly asked his subordinates why police can't just murder suspected drug dealers, or open fire on asylum-seekers crossing the border. 

So too, Diederich and his fellow Wilhelmine "patriots"—in Mann's novel—can't help but express their delight and admiration when they see the forces of authority gun down a protester in the street. Diederich declares, after witnessing this spectacle: "the incident partakes of the sublime, of the majestic, so to speak. That a person who is impertinent can be simply shot down in the public street, without trail—think of it! It brings something heroic to the dullness of civil life." 

Such are Trump's sentiments exactly, when he says the police should simply shoot accused shoplifters in the back, or when he says that the U.S. military should point their guns across the border and shoot assembled asylum-seekers in the knees as they attempt to request refuge in the United States. As one of the other so-called "patriots" in the novel declares: "I have nothing to say against the sentry [who committed the shooting], gentlemen. In fact, I have always held that soldiers are there to shoot." 

Men like Trump, Tucker, and little Diederich all have made a cult of "strength," of "power." But as we have already seen—and as Mann's novel also brings out so well—their worship of "strength" comes out of their own boundless weakness. Inside, they are all pathetic little boys longing for the strong whip-arm of "Daddy" to teach them a lesson. They are so weak themselves that they cannot see that the essence of true strength is the self-restraint of power—the choice not to abuse a position of advantage. 

Because of this, there is no one Diederich in the novel detests so much as the well-off liberals—the Buck family (perhaps a novelistic stand-in for the Manns?). He despises them for having power without abusing it. He cannot understand why they have wealth and advantage, and yet use it to share profits with their workers and to found benevolent local institutions. He distrusts and despises them for holding power but not exploiting it, the way he would if he ever came into a position to wield the whip-hand. 

This is also plainly what is going on with the Tuckers and Trumpists of the world. They despise the "feminine" rule of the "nanny state." An authority that tries to use power to advance mutually beneficial social goals is anathema to them. They long to rebel against it. But their rebellion also simultaneously discloses—as we have seen—the desire to submit to someone else—someone more ruthless. Just look as all those people at Trump's rallies who have adopted Tucker's slogan: "Daddy's Home." 

The Wall Street Journal offered a revealing data point on this score in a recent article. It was talking about the cohort of young men who have made bets this past year on "risky" politics and investments. The same people who voted for Trump, that is to say, are disproportionately likely to also be invested in crypto and meme stocks. And the article describes their psychological profile: they are most likely to be men who "value masculinity highly but feel they aren’t traditionally masculine enough."

In other words, they are little Diderichs. They long for strength to tyrannize over others—but at the same time, they are aware all too keenly of their own weakness. So, they seek power through worship of those they perceive as strongmen, as authoritarian "Daddy" figures. They wish to submit to the Trumps and Putins of the world in exchange for getting to dominate others in turn. As Diederich puts it: "each of us must have a superior whom we can fear, and an inferior to frighten." 

In the wake of the 2024 election, countless observers have wondered: why is there not more resistance to Trump's quasi-authoritarian agenda? Why did so many people vote for him, despite his pledges to undermine traditional democratic safeguards? And still further, now that he is moving to install cabinet picks who will advance his personal authority, why are people not organizing to oppose him? Why is no one marching in the streets? 

The answer may be: we have far too many Diederichs running this country. We have a great many people in this land—including many in positions of apparently great power and wealth and prestige (such as Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, etc.)—who are actually aware deep down of their own internal moral weakness. And so, they long for submission. They end up worshipping the mere fact of apparent success. Trump has become legitimate in their eyes, simply because he "won"; simply because he has power. 

"The loyal subject," as Wolfgang Buck says in one scene: "you have seen what he is like! An average man, with a commonplace mind, the creature of circumstance and opportunity, without courage so long as things are going badly for him here, and tremendously self-important as soon as they had turned in his favor." Or, as Diederich thinks to himself at one point, confirming the observation: "whatever succeeded was right!" And again, later still: "Where success is, there is God!"

Anyone who wonders why American democracy is putting up such astonishingly little resistance to Trump should look there. The country is, unfortunately, full of Diederichs. People who were liberal when that was the going thing to be, "woke" when that was trendy, and who are now just as happy to bend over and receive a spanking from their MAGA Daddy just because he happened to win the election. Power, for some men, becomes its own justification. "Where success is, there is God!"

Daddy is home indeed.