The Daddy Election (ft. Talia Lavin)

Cancel Me, Daddy

Our regularly scheduled episode happens to fall on Halloween! And spooky season is feeling extra—as extra as Tucker Carlson rallying “Daddy Trump” to give America a “vigorous spanking” for being a “bad little girl.” It’d be funny if it wasn’t sickening, and terrifying. We’re just five days from the 2024 presidential election, featuring the return of the Orange Fascist—and white evangelical power could strong-arm the strongman back into the White House.

This week, author and friend of the pod Talia Lavin unravels the intricacies of the movement, the subject of her new book, “Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America,” with Katelyn and Christine. To well-funded white evangelical nationalists, only Trump can deliver us from the literal demons behind every abortion and pronoun. We need to take this group seriously, or the joke is on us come Election Day.

Content Warning: This episode includes extensive discussion of child abuse and corporal punishment, which Wild Faith explores as central to the Christian right’s political project: creating the conditions for future generations of obedient soldiers for God and country. Please listen with care, and take good care.

Links:

• Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America by Talia Lavin

• Talia Lavin for MSNBC: Tucker Carlson’s “daddy” comments speak volumes about the far right

• Martha Ross for The Mercury News: Tucker Carlson: How early rejection by hippie San Francisco mom made him shameless

• William Grimes for The New York Times: Alice Miller, Psychoanalyst, Dies at 87; Laid Human Problems to Parental Acts