"MAGA Has Daddy Issues" - John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

The desire to be ruled by a king is a childish mentality that is fundamentally un-American

“Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside, you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king!” - Sideshow Bob, The Simpsons

There has been a resurgence of interest in recent years in reading the so-called “great books” of Western Civilization. The trend is controversial for a number of reasons. First is the ethnocentric focus of this canon, centered as it is on Europe and excluding great works from other, non-Western traditions. That gives rise to the second reason for the controversy: the right-wing Christian push for a return to “classical education,” where the great books are at the center of the curriculum, and sometimes so too is white supremacy.

But, as someone educated in the humanities, I tend to agree with Maggie Phillips that “the antidote to [our] fear may be more, not less, classical education.” This is because once you’ve been exposed to the those same “great books” that the Pete Hegseths of the world promote, it’s impossible not to notice that “the very people who are most chauvinistic about the Western tradition sometimes understand it least.”

It is in that spirit that I have been returning in recent months to reading some of those classics, especially those works most central to the American experiment. To say that I’ve discovered that MAGA “patriots” have exactly the wrong end of the stick would be to state the obvious. Nor is this a new discovery. There are excellent books that cover this very topic in great detail. One of the best is Andrew Seidel’s book, The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American. Nonetheless, it is worth revisiting (or reading for the first time) some of the great books of the American experiment for the absolute gems they sometimes contain.

And that brings me to the title of today’s post. Of course, this is not an actual quote from John Locke. But it well could be given what he had to say about the origins and legitimacy of monarchy as a form of political rule. Locke’s writing had an enormous influence on the American founders, who of course had no love for monarchy. After taking a look at what Locke had to say, it’s no wonder why.

We joke, of course, that MAGA has “daddy issues.” But it’s no joking matter. It’s something that the movement itself embraces. After the NATO Secretary General said in response to Trump’s use of profanity, “Daddy has to sometimes use strong language,” the White House and MAGA embraced the daddy imagery. The White House posted a video of Trump arriving at the NATO summit to the tune, “Daddy’s Home,” by Usher. MAGA digital side hustlers dutifully went to work flooding Etsy with hundreds of Daddy’s Home t-shirts, digital downloads, mugs, and more.

https://www.etsy.com/market/trump_daddys_home_image

HuffPost quoted child therapist Josh Terhune responding to the Daddy’s Home incident:

“While [Sigmund] Freud may have held some problematic views, he definitely got a few things right,” Terhune said. He “argued that people often seek powerful authority figures to fulfill an unconscious desire for protection and guidance, just like a child does with a parent.”

But Freud was late to the party by a couple hundred years. John Locke identified this same childish desire for the rule and protection from a strong father figure in his Second Treatise of Government, first published in 1689. He writes,

Sect. 75. Thus it was easy, and almost natural for children, by a tacit, and scarce avoidable consent, to make way for the father’s authority and government. They had been accustomed in their childhood to follow his direction, and to refer their little differences to him, and when they were men, who fitter to rule them? Their little properties, and less covetousness, seldom afforded greater controversies; and when any should arise, where could they have a fitter umpire than he, by whose care they had every one been sustained and brought up, and who had a tenderness for them all? It is no wonder that they made no distinction betwixt minority and full age; nor looked after one and twenty, or any other age that might make them the free disposers of themselves and fortunes, when they could have no desire to be out of their pupilage: the government they had been under, during it, continued still to be more their protection than restraint; and they could no where find a greater security to their peace, liberties, and fortunes, than in the rule of a father.

Sect. 76. Thus the natural fathers of families, by an insensible change, became the politic monarchs of them too.

But, Locke didn’t just reject monarchy because it was bad politics. He rejected it precisely because it was based on patriarchy, which he found to be illogical and even un-Biblical. The mother, he said, had just as much right to and authority over her children as the father. Paternal power within the household, then, did not confer political power outside of it, or vice versa. While Locke was certainly not a feminist by today’s standards, he nonetheless helped lay the liberal foundations for later movements for women’s rights and feminism. And he did so by drawing on his reading of the Bible to reject patriarchy as the foundation of tyrannical monarchy as a form of political rule.

What we find, in this case, is that the “great books” from the old dead white men of the Enlightenment and the American revolution do not, in fact, support the MAGA movement despite all their bluster about the founders and great books and classical education. Just the opposite is the case. We even find some surprises, like Locke’s rejection of patriarchy, as well as some funny moments, like his foreshadowing of conservative Freudian daddy issues and pulling no punches in the process.

Do not misunderstand me, however. These works are neither perfect, nor unproblematic. They still contain racist, sexist, ableist, and many other tropes that we rightly find objectionable today. But even with their flaws, they are a damning indictment of the MAGA movement that so often takes the names of these authors and their works in vain. The American experiment to which the Enlightenment liberal ideas led has faltered. Locke and our founders who applied his ideas certainly did not have it all worked out, as we are now all too painfully aware. We must look to more contemporary political theorists if we are to overcome the flaws that MAGA has so adeptly exploited in our system.

But, in designing what comes next, we must not cede the ground of our political philosophical tradition to half-literate fascists and theocrats who would distort it to put us all under the rule of the abusive father figure for which they long. We must reclaim our place as the rightful heirs of the American democratic experiment because we are its rightful heirs! That means taking back our national symbols that MAGA has defiled. But it also means more, not less, engagement with the writings of our founders and the Enlightenment liberal philosophers who inspired them. Because that tradition is fully on our side. And besides, it’s fun when you find a barn burner of a quote from 1689 that basically says your political enemies have daddy issues!

Want more spicy 17th century takes on today’s politics? Check out our previous post: