Tuesday’s midterm elections saw a wave of liberal support to codify legal abortion in a number of states. And while it may not be all that surprising that a Fox News pundit would take to calling the women behind the movement “crazy,” what is surprising is that said pundit was a one-time campaign manager for Barack Obama.
On Wednesday, following a night of surprise victories for both Democrats and measures protecting the right to abortion, Fox News invited Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, to comment.
In explaining that women across the country were extremely motivated to vote after the loss of Roe vs. Wade following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, he uttered the cringe-worthy phrase, “These women just went crazy.”
The reactions online have been savage.
Katherine Abughazaleh of Media Matters of America tweeted the clip, adding the satiric comment, “bitches be voting,” before writing, “I really don’t care how @Messina2012 meant for this to sound. Men need to think about how they speak about women. Historic activism and voter turnout is not “crazy” — WE DON’T WANT TO DIE.”
Other eye-rolling responses to Messina’s statement included: “Hi, honey, yeah, it went great! I stifled the urge to say ‘hysterical,’ just like you suggested!” wrote Hammhawk.
“Highly unlikely he’d use that phrase if he was speaking about men,” tweeted CallMeSamyak.
A few argued that “went crazy” was actually a positive spin on the situation:
“Crazy can have a positive connotation. I don’t see how you take it as anything but here. When a running back goes for 200 yards people go ‘Wow he went crazy that game’ in the same sense,” wrote John Gaetz.
“Watched it on 0.25x speed 12 times and it’s clear he meant it in a positive sense that women are driving this result,” shared Twitter user Bob (bbwxt20).
Fittingly, though, Twitter user YallRCrazy had one of the more memorable last words:
“Oh, we weren’t crazy. We were all synced up.”
