As though there’s some secret competition among far-right Republicans to see who can be the biggest imbecile, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said at a recent conference that “women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions.”
In a new video, The Lincoln Project ripped Gaetz for the comments, which he for some reason delivered while basically yelling. “Matt, you seem like a guy that enjoys spending time with the women,” a narrator says in a perceptibly mocking tone in the new clip. “So why are you so angry at them? Are you mad because you have to pay for sex? Allegedly. It almost seems like you’re trying to yell out enough that no one will see you’ve been hiding something.” At that point, an image of former Central Florida county official Joel Greenberg — a man Gaetz once described as his “wingman” — appeared. Greenberg pleaded guilty to crimes including sex trafficking a minor, and Gaetz is under federal criminal investigation for potentially victimizing the same then-minor.
“What are you compensating for?” the narrator continued in the video from The Lincoln Project. “But Matt, you don’t have to yell that loudly. That secret you’re so worried about people discovering? It’s not big. At all.” The implications are, of course, obvious — and accented by a woman on-screen at the end holding her fingers closely together, as though demonstrating the size of something. Watch The Lincoln Project’s video targeting the Florida loudmouth below:
Misogynists like Matt feel the need to overcompensate for something *small*. pic.twitter.com/jWNNlgcJRw
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 26, 2022
At another point in the same speech Gaetz recently gave, the Florida Congressman added: “Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb.” Besides the obvious lack of a basic level of human decency, it’s worth noting how that’s not a policy agenda. It’s not a constructive, specific vision for the future of the United States. It’s not a plan by which some of those in need, including the low-income people among those who benefit from abortion services, could get help. Nope: it’s just Matt Gaetz yelling about people being supposedly ugly. That really sums up so much of what’s going on in the Gaetz-Trump-McCarthy corner of the GOP these days, which is almost all of it: little in terms of plans or ambition but an overwhelming tidal wave of angry, antagonistic behavior that’s out-of-step with Americans. Self-serving grievance-peddling is their forte. In a recent GOP Congressional primary endorsement Trump prominently touted at an Arizona rally, he mentioned election integrity first — although polling shows not even most GOP’ers see that as the main issue facing the country.
