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Thursday
A recent essay drawing on the ideas of linguist and philosopher George Lakoff contends that, once we understand why Donald Trump’s supporters keep calling him “Daddy”–and why they continue to infantilize themselves on national television–we will “hold the key to understanding the psychology of the Republican Party and the cult of Trump.” Reading Gil Duran’s article conjured up for me William Blake’s Nobodaddy.
The examples Duran cites are disturbing and sometimes downright creepy, at least to those not in the Trumpian cult. For instance:
“It’s like daddy arrived, and he’s taking his belt off, you know?” said actor Mel Gibson during a recent interview with Sean Hannity on Fox.
“Daddy’s back!” exclaimed Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida after Trump’s inauguration. “Daddy’s home!” tweeted Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado. “Dad is home,” declared conservative troll Charlie Kirk. “Straighten up sucker, cuz daddy’s home!” sang Kid Rock at Trump’s inauguration party. “Now your daddy’s home,” jeered Roseanne Barr and Tom MacDonald in a bizarre Trump-themed rap song.
Creepiest of all is Tucker Carlson comparing America to a naughty daughter whom Trump needs to spank:
You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking, right now. … It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.
Duran is drawing on Lakoff’s concept of “strict father morality,” which the philosopher describes it as follows:
The strict father model begins with a set of assumptions: The world is a dangerous place, and it always will be, because there is evil out there in the world. The world is also difficult because it is competitive. There will always be winners and losers. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong.
Children are born bad, in the sense that they just want to do what feels good, not what is right. Therefore, they have to be made good. What is needed in this kind of a world is a strong, strict father who can:
• Protect the family in the dangerous world,
• Support the family in the difficult world, and
• Teach his children right from wrong.
What is required of the child is obedience, because the strict father is a moral authority who knows right from wrong. It is further assumed that the only way to teach kids obedience—that is, right from wrong—is through punishment, painful punishment, when they do wrong.
The punishment aimed at kids is also aimed at others, such as immigrants, poor families, and struggling women. It also informs a certain view of Christianity.
Currently we are seeing two strains of Christianity wrestling for the soul of America, the love-oriented Christianity that Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde preached the other day and the punishment-oriented Christianity of Trump supporters. It was this latter version of God that Blake attacks in his poetry.
I admit to not understanding much of Blake’s bewildering cosmology, but I instinctively get his aversion to an angry daddy god. Nobodaddy is perhaps a compound word taken from “Old Daddy Nobody.” Some have also suggested that Blake means it to be a close anagram of Abaddon, the “angel of the bottomless pit” who appears in Revelation 9:11 and is mentioned in Job 26:6. According to Blake scholar L. Edwin Folsom, the poet sees this god as a farting and belching “Father of Jealousy” who hides himself in clouds and loves “hanging & drawing & quartering / Every bit as well as war & slaughtering.” At different points in his poetry Blake associates him with Winter, the Will, and the Old Testament God.
If there’s a connection with Revelation’s Abaddon, then he would also be associated with the king of locusts, which supposedly will be released during the apocalypse in order to torture “those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.” In the eyes of some Trump Christians, this includes anyone who votes Democratic.
Here one of Blake’s poems featuring the dark fathernfigure:
To Nobodaddy
Why art thou silent & invisible
Father of jealousy
Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds
From every searching Eye
Why darkness & obscurity
In all thy words & laws
That none dare eat the fruit but from
The wily serpents jaws
Or is it because Secrecy
gains females loud applause
When one lives in thrall to such a daddy god, one sees sexuality as a secret and sinful temptation (“wily serpents jaws”)—which helps explain why we regularly hear about MAGA pastors molesting children or committing adultery. Whereas if one sees God as a figure of love, then the world looks very different, as in this poem from Songs of Innocence:
The Shepherd
How sweet is the shepherd’s sweet lot!
From the morn to the evening he strays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day,
And his tongue shall be fillèd with praise.
For he hears the lambs’ innocent call,
And he hears the ewes’ tender reply;
He is watchful while they are in peace,
For they know when their shepherd is nigh.
This is closer to how I raised my own children–listening to their calls, taking them seriously, and replying tenderly–and they have grown into responsible and kind men as well as extraordinary fathers. No belt was needed.
