Yes, it’s from the official White House account. On the occasion of Valentine’s Day, that account ran an image of candy hearts with the words “MAGA”, “love” and “Daddy’s home”. Would you like to take three guesses as to whom it was referring as “daddy”?

And this is by no means the only such reference. It’s become quite common in the MAGA cult to allude to Dear Leader, either explicitly or implicitly, as a father figure. Which is about as ironic as you can get, considering what a bloated manbaby he is. But to the MAGA “mind”, indulging in schoolyard bluster, bullying, aggression, and building phallic monuments to oneself are displays of “strength”. And strength is tantamount to masculinity.

Over at the administration’s official department of propaganda, Fox “News”, Jesse Watters had this to say:

In order to have masculine politics and you need to live your life as a man. You need to live a life of action, and you have to live it outdoors. The first step is having your own compound. T—p had T—p Tower. He’s got his golf courses. He’s got the White House now. You call people in and hold court and control everything. That is what they need.

If you think all of this has a familiar ring to it, you are quite correct.

It’s common, and indeed pretty much standard, for authoritarian regimes to frame their (invariably male) rulers as father figures — paragons of authority, strength, and, perhaps most galling of all, affection (which they rarely have) for their subjects. This implicit metaphor suggests that the nation is just one big happy family, with the (invariably male) head of the household exuding power, discipline and wisdom, to which his subjects are the powerless children who feel obliged to respond with loyalty, trust and obedience.

Stalin was dubbed the “Father Of Nations”, and often was depicted with children. Likewise Mao Zedong. And the members of the Kim Dynasty in North Korea — one of whom is pictured above in a propaganda poster — who have been proclaimed the “Great Father”.

But wait. What about calling George Washington the “Father Of the Country”? And what about referring to those who cobbled the nation together as “Founding Fathers”? Well, yes, that’s a similar kind of sentiment. But there are a couple of key differences. First of all, these epithets were applied retroactively, and not during the time that the individuals in question were alive and kicking. And secondly, these name tags were pinned on by other people who were outside the individuals’ sphere of influence. That’s a very different thing from having fatherhood evoked by an official White House account, or a lapdog media outlet.

And it’s certainly very different from having a leader refer to himself as “Father”. As was the case with Sun Myung Moon, or “Reverend” Moon to his followers. He was the founder and leader of the Unification Church, more commonly known as the Moonies, and he presented himself as a modern day Messiah, on a divine mission to complete the mission that Jesus had failed to consummate. He commonly referred to himself as “Father”. In the third person.

To be sure, this kind of patriarchal nomenclature has a long history in religion, both orthodox and cultish. After all, God Herself is often referred to as the Heavenly Father. And officials in some churches are dubbed as earthly “fathers”. (Which is especially odd given that some of them are sworn to celibacy.) And the patriarchy has filtered down into language itself, to such an extent and for such a long time that it’s taken for granted.

Most of these usages of parental maleness imagery are not particularly malevolent. Well, except for the fact that they foster and help perpetuate gender bias. But in some cases, exalting a father figure carries with it the implication that, like the male “head of a household”, the father figure has the right not only to command obedience, but to exact punishment.

Those who buy into a system that ensconces a father figure on the throne are often those who don’t want to make their own decisions or do their own thinking. And sometimes this kind of arrangement can lead to some dire consequences indeed.