Yesterday I posted a link to an ad produced by the Lincoln Project that showed two women friends secretly voting for Kamala Harris while their husbands feel confident that they will follow their guidance and vote for creepy Donald Trump. Here’s the ad again.
Only you need to know who you vote for. Just ask Melania. pic.twitter.com/gdMyXZXYjj
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 28, 2024
Here’s another one produced by Vote Common Good that is narrated by Julia Roberts.
The ads are well produced and mildly amusing and make the somewhat banal point that nobody will know whom you vote for so you should vote for whomever you want. But these ads seem to have driven the right wing bananas.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is raging about an ad telling women they don’t have to reveal to anyone, including their husbands, how they vote in the 2024 election.
…The ad, produced by the group Vote Common Good, has thrown conservatives into a frenzy. Gingrich joined the chorus in a Thursday interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, who complained about celebrities endorsing Harris en masse.
“These people are dishonest,” Gingrich responded. “And so, for them to tell people to lie is just one further example of the depth of their corruption. I mean, how do you run a country where you’re walking around saying, ‘Wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives’?”
…“I mean, what kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed? If you think about it at that level, it is astonishing, the decay,” he said, before claiming that the “decay” is why Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who reportedly maintained at least three romantic liaisons outside of his marriage with Cheryl Hines, left the Democratic Party and endorsed former President Donald Trump.
…“Instead of having a dignity and patriotism and a sense of morality, these are really sick people,” Gingrich continued. “And the more you watch them, to say, ‘Oh, why don’t you lie to your husband?’ as a publicly advocated ad? That is sick! And I think we ought to have the courage to say this is a sick, dishonest party.”
Let’s pause for a moment. There is indeed something very disturbing about these ads but it is not what seems to infuriate Gingrich, that women are lying to their husbands about their choice for president. It is that the women feel the need to lie to their husbands about whom they voted for. What kind of controlling relationships have these men created in their marriages that their wives cannot think for themselves and vote freely? That is the real problem.
And then there is of course the obvious point that Gingrich is hardly in a position to throw stones at these women because in 2007 “Gingrich told [Christian televangelist] James Dobson in a radio interview that he had in the 1990s cheated on his second wife (with his current wife, Callista)”. He also had an affair with his second wife while married to his first. And of course creepy Trump, the person whom Gingrich worships, is a serial philanderer who lies like he breathes and has lied to all his wives about his affairs with other women.
But that perfectly captures the GOP attitude about women. It is perfectly acceptable for men to lie to their wives about major things and even have affairs but let women hide from their husbands small things like whom they are going to vote for and they get lectured about how that constitutes an act of great moral turpitude and is a sign of an “amoral, corrupt, sick system” created by Democrats.
And they wonder wby they are losing support among women.
This Republican freakout about the ads says a lot more about the Republicans than it does about anyone else.
RB has it nailed.
It is, of course, disappointing that we don’t have a competent press in the USA because then it wouldn’t be possible for Gingrich to get away with blaming Dems for inventing the “system” of lying to a spouse. Oy, me. It just drives me up a wall that people can lie on widely broadcast programs this blatantly.
They talk about this in the WaPo today, one in eight women have lied to their spouse about who they voted for cf. one in ten men. It’s really freaking significant.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/01/women-voting-secret-choice/
I have not double- checked this but did not JFK Junior’s ex-wife find his diary containing detailed accounts of the thirtysomething women he had sex with while married?
I put this in the ‘plausible but unconfirmed’ column.
(Looks at what JFK Jr looks like)
OK if it happened that must have been when he was much younger.
Not telling someone who you voted for isn’t lying in the first place. Of course the cheating amphibian would claim that women voting for their chosen candidate is a terrible thing, because women having agency is something patriarchal asshats can’t wrap their stunted minds around.
Didn’t he serve his wife divorce papers while she was hospitalized having cancer treatment?
Also, who looks at their baby and names it newt?
In patriarchal Christian and/or rightwing families, women lying (or omitting facts) is just baked-in behavior. The patriarch--who is second only to God above in authority and demands just as much worship--can’t handle being upset in any way, so family life is built around pacifying Daddy to keep him from throwing violent tantrums and lashing out at the people he sees as his to rule over and abuse.
Tethys @#5,
The story about Gingrich serving divorce papers to his wife while she was in hospital is clouded by uncertainty and conflicting stories. Because of that, I did not include it.
As to his name, it is short for Newton.
Mano Singham @ 7
I would still argue that a Republican congressman not involved in marital shenagians of some sort would be the exception, the case of boring-but-faithful Mitt Romney being an outlier.
If a ‘Merican TV company ever made a version of lowbrow Brit comedy The New Statesman they would have plenty of material.
Property mustn’t disobey.
birgerj @4, do you perhaps mean RFK Jr., the lunatic who’s cozying up to Trump?
The president JFK had thousands of hook-ups, including all during his marriage and presidency, but he was only married once.
His son JKF Jr. was also only married once, they both died before they had a chance to divorce.
However, I would believe *anything* about the vile lunatic who is Robert Kennedy’s son, RFK Jr., if that’s who you mean.