Sargent: Speaking of trying to portray this as stern, tough-minded business thinking, in your piece you detail how Trump propagandists have pushed this idea of Trump as the stern “daddy” businessman who administers tough love. Tucker Carlson said a while back that Trump winning the election would mean “daddy comes home and he’s pissed.” Mel Gibson, who’s MAGA now, recently said of Trump, “I’m glad Trump’s here. It’s like daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off.” Why anyone would be glad about that, I don’t know, but maybe Mel Gibson has some reason for that. You write that this idea has a long history and punditry about the GOP. Can you talk about that?
Milligan: Yes. There’s this idea that the Democrats are [of] the “mommy” party and they want to nurture. They want to help the people who are underserved in some way with health care, with education, with housing, that sort of thing. And Republicans are [of] the “daddy” party, and they want to protect you from evil outside forces and so forth. Still, both of them are rooted in the idea that the government is doing something for you.
What Trump is being is he’s not being a “daddy”; he’s being bad dad, he’s being abusive dad, he’s being belligerent dad. As I said, he’s the dad at the Little League game who berates the umpire and makes his own kid cry for dropping a fly ball. This is not the dad that you want in charge. And it’s all about him, and how it makes him look. And he’s remaking the party, though, in this way, unless they push back.
