The attitude with Arnie Arnesen the Thurs edition noon to 1pm EST wnhnfm.org aug 21

[Arnie Arnesen]

The attitude with arnie arnesen

opening thoughts: Amanda Marcotte why MAGA calls Trump daddy?

producers: Dave Scott and Stephanie Collins
Chloé LaCasse (the best of the attitude)
streaming live at wnhnfm.org noon&7pm EST on the dial-94.7FM Concord NH

podcasts available at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/attitude-with-arnie-arnesen/id1634055179

opening thoughts: 

Why MAGA calls Trump “Daddy” Yes, it's a weird sex thing. But it also reveals secret insecurities https://www.salon.com/2025/08/18/why-maga-calls-trump-daddy/

The MAGA movement is determined to make politics as disgusting as possible, destroying democracy one juvenile 4chan meme at a time. It turns out that American fascism isn’t just wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross, but accuses women of having “Arby’s in your pants,” claims immigrants eat people’s pets and peddles conspiracy theories that politicians’ wives are secretly trans. In their mission to gross out normal people, Donald Trump‘s followers, much to his delight, like to call him “Daddy.”It seemed to have really taken off in October, when Tucker Carlson gave his “Daddy’s home” speech at a Georgia campaign rally. He likened Trump to an abusive father, and compared America to his teenaged victim, all in an unsubtly sexualized way. “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 said, as the crowd cheered wildly. MAGA crowds loved imagining their leader as Incest Daddy, dishing out humiliating vengeance on “naughty” Americans, whom they imagined as liberals, feminists, queer people, racial minorities. At rallies, they would chant “Daddy’s home” as they fantasized about the horrors Trump would unleash on their perceived enemies.The “Daddy” meme stuck. Mere days after Trump’s re-election, golfer John Daly went on Fox News to proclaim, “I think our country needs Daddy Trump.” GOP Michigan State Sen. Jonathan Lindsey declared in June that many Americans see “Daddy Trump” as a “father figure.” Most disturbingly, in June, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte affectionately called Trump “Daddy” at the most recent NATO summit. Rutte may have just been trying to flatter the notoriously narcissistic president, but Trump’s team lapped it up with the eagerness of a dog going after beef drippings. His fundraising arm even got in on the act, releasing a T-shirt with his mugshot and the name “Daddy” underneath it. The official White House account posted a video of Trump at the NATO summit set to “Daddy’s Home” by Usher, which was swiftly taken down when the singer issued a copyright claim.MAGA may have denied the Jeffrey Epstein vibes in Carlson’s image of Trump beating a teenage girl, but the use of the Usher song confirms that liberals aren’t wrong to hear a sexual fantasy in all this “Daddy” talk — which is really unfair to Usher, because his song is about consenting adults having sex. For MAGA, the whole point of the “Daddy” nickname is to celebrate force and domination, embodied in their leader who was found by a civil jury to have sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll in exactly the way he has bragged about doing to other women.No doubt a lot of this is sublimated sexuality, which is often the case with a right-wing that outwardly embraces Christian right hostility to most forms of sexual expression. But it is the power dynamic that Carlson invoked — the large man versus the small girl — that really distills why Trump and the MAGA movement are so attracted to this “Daddy” idea. Fascism is a vehicle for weak, insecure people to feel powerful in the most cowardly way possible: By violating and abusing those they believe can’t fight back. It’s the attitude of the rapist and the child abuser, someone who pathetically congratulates himself for being “tough” because of his violence, but who fears taking on someone his own size. No wonder Trump is the perfect avatar for it.The fascist theater Trump is putting on in Washington, D.C., right now is a classic example of the “Daddy” mentality — and not just because he always sends others to do his bidding while he hides safely in his make-up chair in the White House. Despite Trump’s hyperbolic rhetoric painting an objectively false picture of the capital as a hellscape of “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor,” the reason he picked D.C. is that it’s easy — it’s a way to look dominant and tough without actually taking on serious problems that genuinely tough leaders could handle. That’s why the National Guard troops and other federal agents deployed to fight this imaginary battle against crime didn’t go to neighborhoods with high crime rates, but were instead assigned to areas of the city, like the National Mall, with high camera rates....the most critical takeaway of Trump’s whole “Daddy” branding effort: It reveals his weakness and insecurity. As Carlson’s speech shows, “Daddy” doesn’t take on grown men his own size. “Daddy” beats little girls. “Daddy” tries to make himself feel big by attacking people who are smaller. “Daddy” uses sex as a weapon, because it’s an easy way to degrade and humiliate people, making it the perfect tool for those who fear having to deal with conflict in a dignified, mature way. “Daddy” pretends to be powerful, but only to mask that he has nothing to offer but petulant aggression toward those who can’t fight back.Make no mistake, though. There’s danger in this attitude. Obviously, the “Daddy” tactics are extremely dangerous to the people being targeted because they don’t have the means to defend themselves. But the behavior also reveals that MAGA has vulnerabilities. The entire movement is composed of cowards who only pretend at bravery, which means they can be defeated — but only if they face people who are willing to use true strength to fight back. 

part one: A History Lesson: The Great Leap Forward https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2025/08/a-history-lesson-great-leap-forward.html

ID: Sarah Inama Has New Classroom (And All Are Welcome There)

https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2025/08/id-welcome-teacher-has-new-classroom.html

bio: Peter Greene spent 39 years as a high school English teacher in small town Western Pennsylvania. He has written about how policies and practices affect classrooms for over a decade, and for Forbes since 2018. Follow him for news and analysis of education debates, pedagogical practices, culture wars, political edu-wrangling, and what it all means to actual classrooms

part two: Trump Targets Mail-In Voting, and the Democrats Phone in Their Counter-StrategiesTrump has launched an all-out assault on civic freedoms, but the Democrats aren’t yet giving their base something to vote for. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-mail-voting-democrats-counter-strategies/

Chris Lehmann is the DC Bureau chief for The Nation and a contributing editor at The Baffler. He was formerly editor of The Baffler and The New Republic, and is the author, most recently, of The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American Dream (Melville House, 2016).
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KEEPING THE POT STIRRED SO SCUM DOESN'T RISE TO THE TOP -  Anonymous 

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