Like lots of kids who grew up in the rural Midwest – at least prior to Internet access and smartphones – I watched a lot of trash TV as a kid. I mean, a lot. Including a little show about Al Bundy, which I’ll get to in a minute.

It’s not like you could just step out of your house, walk down the sidewalk, and play with other kids. I did the whole Little League Baseball thing for 10 years. But we played, what, 12 games a year? What did we do on the other 75 days of summer?

We watched trash TV, that’s what.

Married with Children

Including a little show called Married with Children.

For readers about 35-50 years old, I probably don’t need to introduce Married with Children. It was an anchor show on Fox as Fox began to work its way into the network TV picture.

But for other readers, the show follows the life and times of Al Bundy and his family. Bundy is a shoe salesmen in a suburban Chicago mall. Despite constantly claiming poverty, no one else in the family works. And the Bundy family lives in a fairly nice suburban house in a fairly nice Chicago suburb. So, they can’t be that poor.

The show has its collection of chestnuts. Al doesn’t want to have sex with his wife Peggy. His son Bud is an awkward, horny teenager. His daughter Kelly personifies the ‘blonde Bimbo’ character. And so on. The Simpsons sums it up pretty well, in fact.

Al Bundy

More broadly, the show displays a lot of right-wing resentment politics. Especially anti-feminist politics from the 1990s, but applicable enough today. The neighbor character, Marcy, is a feminist parody character. And Al and his buddies even form a group called NO MA’AM (National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood). He spends his free time reading a porno mag called ‘BigUns.’ And so on.

I don’t know whether it’s good for kids to watch a show like this. But I also don’t know what attitude, exactly, the show took toward Al, his friends, his neighbors, and his politics. As such, anyway, since Al almost certainly didn’t vote. More than anything, it’s always ambiguous as to whether Married with Children celebrates or revels in the politics. Or, alternatively, whether it creates a satire against those politics.

I suspect it’s the latter. Maybe the former slips in. Maybe by accident. In fact, this is a problem with a lot of 90s TV. Especially trash TV, but even less ‘edgy’ kinds of 90s shows.

Al Bundy and Trumpism

So, anyway, about Al Bundy. In a lot of ways, Bundy personifies a Trump voter. Or, at least, he personifies many of the forces of Trumpism. I’m not the first person to suggest this, but let’s have a look at the claim.

Like lots of Trumpists, Bundy airs a lot of grievances at various groups. Often he does so on the basis of a kind of right-wing identity politics.If you’re not familiar with Bundy’s brand of resentment politics, watch this video of him at the DMV!

At the same time, he seems to lead a pretty comfortable life! He also shares that in common with a lot of Trump voters. Bundy lives in a pretty nice house in a pretty nice neighborhood. He has two healthy children. No one else in his household even has to work, and they still get by.

More than perhaps any other TV character, Bundy does both of those things.

It’s not a perfect fit. Bundy’s job seems like low-wage work. In fact, it seems like Bundy shouldn’t be able to get by on it. Even in the 1990s. So, that’s a big flaw in the show and its vision. But, overall, ‘Al Bundy as Trump voter’ works pretty well.

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