When the former guy gave a speech in Pennsylvania yesterday, he told the women in the crowd that “You will be protected, and I will be your protector.” Something about this seemed familiar.
Then I remembered why. There is a point in Nabokov’s novel Lolita where Humbert Humbert says “I intended, with the most fervent force and foresight, to protect the purity of that twelve-year-old child.”
This is the familiar logic used by all abusers everywhere. The person who wants to take away your freedom tells you that he is the only person who can protect you.
As Mae West once said, “Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can’t figure out what from.”