For nearly a decade, the Republican Party has been mesmerized by the “Make America Great Again” mantra. Implicit in the MAGA slogan is the presumption there was once a period of American greatness which has vanished. The tribune for this thesis, one Donald J. Trump, has made it clear greatness prevailed at some point in the past century since he routinely trashes his predecessors elected in the 21st century.

Although he invited Bill and Hillary Clinton to his third wedding, he hasn’t been much of an enthusiast for their shared presidency. Having borrowed his MAGA refrain from Ronald Reagan’s campaigns, it would be a mistake to think Trump honors the Gipper’s memory — marred as it was with immigrant amnesty, free-trade economics, anti-Soviet foreign policy and an aggressive defense of democracy — none of this appeals to the 2024 MAGA ticket.

Despite Jimmy Carter’s admirable post-presidency as a Habitat for Humanity volunteer, general-purpose peacemaker and global election monitor, we have to return to the 1950s during Trump’s own childhood, to discover the muscular American hegemony he prizes. This was confirmed for me when I read Tucker Carlson’s bizarre rant at a Georgia election rally last week. Tucker characterizes the country inhabited by his fellow Americans as a house where the children are misbehaving, the babies smear their feces on the walls and the teenagers smoke joints at the dinner table. Carlson warns, “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home. Yeah, that’s right. Dad comes home and he’s pissed!” He’s apparently really pissed with his daughter, who has flipped off her parents and slammed her bedroom door.

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Enacting the part of the returning Dad, Carlson growled, “You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl. And you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now!” Although just a fraction of voters can recall the 1950s, they were a period of frequent spankings, even whippings by parents. I never figured out whether it was their own discipline during the Depression years, or the ferocity of World War II that prompted my parents’ faith in the value of corporal punishment. My twin brother and I received regular thrashings with a belt. So did most of the boys and many of the girls I went to school with. Attending eight elementary schools as my dad bounced between government assignments, at each new school he would tell the new principal he had permission to spank us if we got out of line. They usually assured him they doubted this would be necessary, perhaps adding we seemed nice boys. However, each school usually had a paddle hanging on its wall.

In Georgia, the MAGA crowd chanted, “Daddy’s home!” once candidate Trump appeared. They apparently regarded Democrats as socialist, lunatic-left Marxists deserving of a spanking. I spanked my son only once, when he was 8 or 9, and misbehaving badly. I quickly realized I was more upset because he had embarrassed me than I was angry about his misbehavior. Recognizing this, I apologized and relied on confinement to his room as a more effective punishment. Some, I am sure, will say I went soft. Yet, 60 years later I still resent the rage-fueled beatings my father administered, which I can’t excuse even though he thought he was doing the right thing — teaching us a lesson.

Why Tucker Carlson singled out the daughter in his diatribe advocating spanking is truly weird. Before American women received the right to vote, courts countenanced “moderate” wife beatings by husbands, even if the “rule of thumb” for the width of the rod used to beat a wife was more a part of English common law. There is no greatness in either practice. We’ve moved passed them, thankfully; but it’s puzzling why they were ever thought acceptable. We didn’t practice “active-shooter” drills then, but crawling under our desks during atomic bomb exercises were equally disconcerting.

Grist magazine published a report on recent research by sociologists and behavioral psychologists examining the link between climate disasters and growing support for authoritarian leaders. The findings caught me by surprise. I’ve been oblivious to any connection between natural disasters and the subsequent propensity for autocratic leadership. Although the evidence is somewhat fragmentary and spread over more than a century of elections, there is evidence for a psychological effect from climate changes which arrive as floods, wildfires and violent storms. James McCarthy, an economist at Clark University, observes, “I think you have accelerating climate change contributing incredibly powerfully to a growing sense of insecurity and inequality: fear about the future… and you can’t trust society or collective institutions (for safety). In that context, I think the appeal of the strongman who promises simple answers to complicated things actually makes a lot of sense.” Let’s pray he’s wrong about that.

Christopher Steele of 2016 “Trump Dossier” fame has published an unapologetic book written to defend his credibility. “Unredacted” recounts his career as a British intelligence officer and later transition as co-founder with Chris Burrows of a corporate intelligence investigation company, Orbis. He points out none of the lawsuits filed against him for his 2016 report have been successful — all but one dismissed by British courts as frivolous. He furthers alleges nothing contained in it has been disproven. Penned before Biden dropped from the presidential contest, Steele clearly intends to alarm Americans noting, “If (Putin) succeeds in helping Trump get re-elected, I am convinced the global political and economic order will be utterly changed.” He reports additional “kompromat” regarding Trump’s sexual escapades in Moscow and St. Petersburg have come to light. Conservative Peter Wehner, writing in the Atlantic, reports Indiana U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, who served as national intelligence director, “suspects that Trump is being blackmailed by Putin”.

Steele concludes, “It is arguable that a belligerent and nuclear-armed Putin, or even Xi, could be the most dangerous person who ever lived. This may be true right now, but if he is re-elected president, I would put a reckless, isolationist, autocratic, volatile and impulsive Donald Trump ahead of… both.” That’s a terrifying analysis, notwithstanding Trump’s promises to protect us.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.