Welcome to another normal day in Magaland. The sun is shining, the leaves are falling, and the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is fantasizing about “daddy” Donald Trump spanking teenage girls.

This fresh hell comes via Duluth, Georgia, where Carlson was warming up a Trump rally on Wednesday night. Which is notable in itself because Carlson hasn’t always been a big fan of the former president. Last year a bunch of Carlson’s private text messages were made public as part of the $1.6bn defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems and they made his real feelings about Trump very clear.

“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson texted an undisclosed recipient on 4 January 2021. “I truly can’t wait.” He added: “I hate him passionately.”

Carlson’s spanking fantasy encapsulates everything supporters love about the presidential candidate

Rather than ignoring Trump, as he was once so excited to do, however, Carlson – who was booted from Fox News last year – seems to have become a confidant of the ex-president and is now making disturbing speeches on his behalf. During the rally Carlson, who has three adult daughters, compared the US under Trump to a naughty girl being disciplined by her father. “If you allow your hormone-addled 15-year-old daughter to slam the door and give you the finger, you’re going to get more of it,” Carlson said. “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home.” At this point the crowd erupted into raucous cheers.

“Dad comes home and he’s pissed,” Carlson continues. “He’s not vengeful, he loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them … And 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. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”

Clearly this struck a chord with the crowd. Later, when Trump came on stage, they screamed “Daddy’s home” and “Daddy Don”. Sigmund Freud almost rose from his grave.

James Singer, a Harris campaign spokesman, declared the speech “fucking weird”. And for a lot of people, it certainly was. But for Trump’s cult-like supporters, Carlson’s spanking fantasy encapsulates everything they love about the presidential candidate: the paternalism, the toxic masculinity, the lust for violence and thirst for revenge.

The idea of Trump as a father figure also plays into the nominee’s own portrayal of himself. Trump doesn’t go around explicitly telling people to call him daddy (that I know of), but he has sought to depict himself as a protector of women. At a recent rally in Pennsylvania, for example, Trump told women that he would save them. “You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared … You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today,” Trump said. “You will be protected, and I will be your protector.”

While nothing seems to test the faith of Trump’s most diehard supporters, the idea of the former president as a protector may slowly be losing traction with white women. About 47% of white women voted for Trump in 2016, compared with 45% for Hillary Clinton. And in 2020 53% of white women voted for Trump, compared with 46% for Joe Biden. Now, however, thanks in large part to abortion rights being overturned, many white women seem to finally be parting ways with the GOP.

But as women peel away from Trump, more men are flocking to him: he has always had a huge amount of support from white men but has recently seen gains with Hispanic American and African American men. And, for many of these men, the idea of a tough guy like Trump putting a woman in her place unfortunately seems to be very compelling. Carlson certainly isn’t the only one airing chauvinistic fantasies. In August, for example, the Fox News host Jesse Watters declared that, if elected, Harris was “going to get paralyzed in the situation room while the generals have their way with her” – a comment so disgusting that even Watters’ co-hosts asked him to take it back. Instead, Watters doubled down. “Have their way with her, control her – not in a sexual way,” he smirked.

Harris’s spokespeople may dismiss Carlson’s disgusting speech as “weird” but it is less weird than it is terrifying. The idea of Trump as a father figure spanking a woman into submission seems to resonate with a disturbing number of Americans. There is a very real chance that in just two weeks Trump will be voted back into office. And if he does, then you can bet that democracy will take a beating.