Daddy Issues? GOP Tough Guys Cry For Help In Scary Cities
Conservatives who have depicted Donald Trump as a strong “daddy” finally whipping the nation into shape have spent the past few days expressing over-the-top fears about cities. Despite their so-called tough guy image, leaders on the right have offered fearful remedies while pushing lies about urban crime.
During the 2024 campaign Republicans characterized Trump as a “daddy” who was coming to straighten out misbehaving Americans supposedly coddled by maternal politicians like former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
In recent weeks the right has doubled down on this cringeworthy imagery, adopting the song lyrics “daddy’s home” to herald Trump’s purported leadership on the world stage.
But now “daddy” is hearing a lot of crying from some tearful boys and girls.
The new scaredy-cat campaign is meant to provide cover for Trump’s decision to send federal law enforcement and the National Guard to a supposedly crime-ridden Washington, D.C. Republicans have ignored and denied data showing a drop in crime and instead decided to fearmonger.
Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a staunch Trump ally, was perhaps most representative of this campaign, ironically exhibiting what the right has previously characterized as a “beta” mindset.
“I drive around in Washington, D.C. in my Jeep and, yes, I do drive myself. And I don’t buckle up. And the reason why I don’t buckle up, and people can say whatever they want to, they can raise their eyebrows at me, again, is because of carjacking,” Mullin told Fox News on Wednesday.
“I don’t wanna be stuck in my vehicle when I need to exit in a hurry because I got a seat belt around me. And I wear my seat belt all the time, but in Washington, D.C., I do not because it is so prevalent of carjacking. And I don’t want the same thing happen to me what’s happened to a lot of people that work on the Hill.”
Not wearing a seatbelt in D.C. is against the law and subject to fines. In fact, one of the violations that federal agents have spent their valuable time pursuing while policing the nation’s capital is the failure to wear a seatbelt.
Mullins’ purported behavior also doesn’t make sense in the context of a carjacking, because a carjacker would prefer drivers go without a seatbelt so they can more easily take control of the car they are trying to steal.
And statistics show that carjackings are down considerably in D.C. in the past two years. The city has gone from a high of 67.5 carjackings per 100,000 residents in 2023 to 23.8 in 2025.
Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told CNN on Wednesday that he is so afraid of crime in D.C. that he sleeps in his office.
“I come from a family of public education. That's one of the reasons I live in my office at night. But the other reason is it's too dadgum dangerous, brother. It is dangerous and everybody knows it, and the people are being victimized,” he explained.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott said Trump’s actions in Washington are necessary because the city needs to be safe for his grandchildren. In its current state Scott argued Tuesday, “You’ve got to be very careful, you can’t be out after dark.”
Reality check: thousands of people go out at night in Washington, a city with a vibrant nightlife and culture.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who chairs the House Oversight Committee and is most famous for obsessing over Hunter Biden’s laptop, escalated things on Thursday.
“We're gonna support doing this in other cities if it works out in Washington DC. We spend a lot on our military. Our military has been in many countries around the world for the past two decades walking the streets trying to reduce crime. We need to focus on the big cities in America now,” he told the conservative Newsmax network.
The 147-year old Posse Comitatus Act restricts the use of federal military personnel in enforcing domestic policy, and has often been invoked by conservatives when fearmongering about Democratic presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
But Comer apparently believes that scary sandwich-throwing requires that the law be ignored.
Trump’s allies in right-wing media are also in the throes of crying for “daddy” to fix the problem, with figures like Charlie Kirk, Megyn Kelly, and Ainsley Earhardt cheering the over-the-top incursion into the nation’s capital.
But the data shows that these crybabies aren’t operating in reality. Crime is at a 30-year low in Washington and the show of force has squandered federal resources on mundane violations best left to local police.
“Daddy” Trump is more concerned with distracting the public from his connection to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking scandal and downplaying the continued economic disruption happening on his watch. His bawling children on the right are merely offering up another round of crocodile tears.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
