Aubrey Halbach | staff writer

Less than two weeks before the 2024 presidential election, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson spoke at a Trump rally in Duluth, Georgia, warming up the crowd with a troubling metaphor.

Carlson depicted former President Donald Trump as the hero who will save America, and while doing so, portrayed him in likeness to an angry father spanking his daughter in a far-right narrative aimed at condemning the opposing presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. When Trump walked onto the stage, the crowd greeted him with roars of, “Daddy’s Home!”

“There has to be a point at which dad comes home,” Carlson said, as cheers bellowed from the crowd. “Dad comes home, and he’s pissed!”

“And when Dad gets home, do you know what he says?” Carlson continued, “You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl, and you’re getting a vigorous spanking, right now.”

The paternalistic nature of Carlson’s language bears a resemblance to the treatment of women under fascism throughout history. Traditional fascist regimes, especially those of Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Germany, placed significant focus on the deconstruction of feminist values and the restoration of traditional gender roles. As a result, women were often forced into roles of obedience, under which they were expected to perform submissively in contribution to patriarchal systems that prioritized male authority.

With modern discourse surrounding women’s reproductive rights and access to health care in the United States, the ominous undertones of Carlson’s metaphor are difficult to ignore. Historically, condemning women’s bodily autonomy possesses a deep intertwinement with values perpetuated through fascist rule.

Mussolini’s regime enforced a multitude of obstacles aimed at possessing authority over women’s bodily autonomy. According to a University of Oregon article, enforcements were made to deprive women of access to reproductive healthcare by outlawing abortion and restricting women’s access to birth control. Currently, topics of controlling women’s reproductive rights serve as a primary point of legislative focus for those politically aligned with the values of the far-right in the U.S. government.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 had similar effects to those of fascist regimes regarding the restriction of women’s reproductive rights. With this, these restrictions prompt citizens of the U.S. to focus on traditional family values through both the limitation of women’s choices and the prioritization of women’s reproductive roles over their autonomy.

Included in Trump’s plans if he wins the 2024 presidential election is Project 2025, with at least 140 former Trump administration officials participating in its drafting. Constructed by the Heritage Foundation, this over 900-page handbook functions as a guide to the swift implementation of severe, far-right agendas intended to operate at the federal level. According to the National Women’s Law Center, if set into action, the ideologies of Project 2025 indicate devastating consequences to the lives of women, girls, LGBTQ+ individuals and a wide range of other communities.

Objectives of Project 2025 include the enforcement of patriarchal ideals through its government reign, intended to secure a society characterized by gendered hierarchies. With this, is the proposal to ban language related to sexual orientation; initiatives of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); and reproductive healthcare, with strong themes of hostility toward abortion and the implementation of “pro-life” task forces in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Project 2025 strives to outlaw medication abortion nationwide, to deprive emergency abortion care to individuals suffering dangerous pregnancy complications, and to criminalize medical professionals seeking to provide life-saving care to their patients.

The ideologies promoted in Carlson’s metaphor align with those enforced in traditional fascist regimes, in which the social value of women was largely determined by their contributions to the re-establishment of traditional family structures, functional in perpetuating the dominance of men and the submission of women. The key principle of this goal being, a family model that depends on rigidly defined gender roles.

Carlson’s analogy connecting spanking girls to saving America not only portrays liberal and democratic ideologies as in need of physical discipline but is also reflective of strict, authoritarian masculinity. These values have evidently, and repeatedly, throughout history contributed to the control-focused hierarchical family models used by fascist regimes in their destruction and dehumanization of women.

It is crucial for citizens of the U.S. to consider the historical implications of Carlson’s narrative, and what this means for the women of our nation under the rule of Trump and those who support his ideologies.

“And, no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” Carlson said.