How kid's cartoons enabled Donald Trump

by Matthew Adarichev

Community

(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025 Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025 at 11:55:15am PST

President Donald Trump speaks during the Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Would you believe me if I said kid’s cartoons helped elect Donald Trump?

I’ve been watching a kid’s cartoon series called Codename: Kids Next Door. It’s about a team of five secret agent kids who go on adventures to fight against the tyranny of teens and adults.

In the episode I just watched entitled Operation: S.U.P.P.P.O.R.T., two of the male teammates spend the episode entering a teenage girl’s room without permission, rummaging through her belongings, and playing with her bras, believing them to be a teen weapon known as “battle ready armor”.

What does the young, impressionable audience take away from this episode? You can violate girls’ physical spaces without permission, and feel free to play with their intimate clothing.

Having seen other cartoons, I can assure you this type of episode is not a one-off, but part of a regular pattern of misogynistic themes from kid’s cartoons of the era. A harmful set of beliefs towards women was subtly inculcated in not just the boys, but the girls of an entire generation.

And it was enthusiastically endorsed by higher-ups. The writers, producers, and executives signed off on this, whether because they cynically thought it would play to a mostly male audience, or worse, because they themselves agree with those themes.

This one episode of a seemingly innocuous kid’s cartoon demonstrates how children’s media is shaped by, and contributes to, a culture that endorses paternalistic, condescending, and dangerous attitudes towards women and girls, a culture that allowed for the rise of Donald Trump.