menu Home chevron_right
NEWS & CULTURE

Why MAGA’s Messaging Around Having Babies is So WEIRD

Hysteria | May 16, 2026



Alex Wagner joins Erin to chat about MAGA Mothers.

Political commentator and comedy writer Erin Ryan and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco are joined by a bicoastal squad of funny, opinionated women to talk through everything from reproductive rights to romcoms. They break down the political news of the week, plus the topics, trends, and cultural stories that affect women’s lives. New episodes drop every Thursday. Get in touch: hysteria@crooked.com.

Photos courtesy of AP Photo Archive

Crooked Media believes that we need a better conversation about politics, culture, and the world around us—one that doesn’t just focus on what’s broken, but what we can do to fix it. We are a media network that showcases stories, voices, and opportunities for activism that inform, entertain, and inspire action, because it’s up to all of us to do our part to build a better world.

That’s it. End of mission.

Learn more about us at crooked.com

Written by Hysteria

Comments

This post currently has 48 comments.

  1. @mhartan

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    One aspect of this authoritarian push for preganancy is that Maga leaders are concerned with having more MAGA babies because they want to counterbalance the higher hispanic/latina birth rate. As usual MAGA leadership is driven by racism.

  2. @blueschild61

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    I just asked my wife if she was feeling under babied, "Cause I got the cure for what ails you".

    I'm currently icing my balls.

    I don't mean in a fun, cake frosting kind of way.

  3. @5672RandomFish

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    I am an unwanted child. I was very very well loved and cared for growing up. But my parents have always made it clear that they wouldn’t have had kids if it wasn’t “just what you did back then” I’m childfree and my mom is so supportive of my choice, she is so happy I get to live the life she didn’t.

  4. @SusanEdwards1348

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    It is just one step in the disenfranchisement of women, just as the manufactured panic about trans people is the way to define what gender is as a step toward toward to defining what gender can do.

  5. @stewartdavies929

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    22:30 that is appalling. Just as bad for men as for women. “Men are made to provide”. That is the self identity that is crushing the self esteem young men who have no chance of providing for a family on a single income. That leads to all kinds of bad outcomes.

  6. @harken231

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    The government can't force a person to give blood, even if it's to save the life of a child. But they can force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term. Because America.

  7. @apray359

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    So so glad I live in a blue state right now!💙 that actually cares about womens health and children. Shoutout to NY state! We have an important governors race coming up this fall

  8. @angelmarcano6747

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    The more they try to take away woman's bodily autonomy play force them into reproducing more children and taking away abortion.
    It's going to have the opposite effect they're not going to have the kids that these people are forcing them to have.

  9. @RedRoseWhite

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    25:10 Feminist writer Moira Donegan says that a lifestyle that obligates women to exist in public is inherently superior to one that relegates them to the private sphere (the home). I’m inclined to agree with her. Choice Feminism is all cute and kumbaya-y but it is a societal good when adults take on adult roles and responsibilities, and often “traditional” marriages infantilize women and stifle the contributions they could be making. It also normalizes masculinizing the public sphere, and we’ll continue to have phenomena like men thinking women are dominating a conversation when they’re speaking thirty percent of the time.

  10. @moreanimals6889

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    I've been saying for the longest time, if the Government wants to control my body, the men in office should reciprocate by giving me personal access to what happens to their bodies. Women should be able to vote and force RFK jr. on what we decide happens with his body and any other man in office. The fact that hasn't happened is why men keep trying to control women's bodies. They keep not knowing what it's like and they keep not having equivalent consequences. I want them to have consequences that will permanently shut men up and keep them in their place. Their place is out of my face and away from my body. My body is mine and no one else's.

  11. @TinyTrudyStudio

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    The writing was on the wall in nineteen eighty one. I turned twenty one the same year Reagan was elected, whose hostile policies to women’s rights, access to higher education, and the social safety net were enough for me to decide against having children.

    At sixty five, I know I made the right choice.

  12. @lp88088

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    As much as I respect these two intelligent moms, someone MUST address the elephant in the room! That is, of course, the population bomb! With world population now exceeding 8 billion, the race to secure a share of the world's resources is becoming violent. Meanwhile, the air, land, and water have, in many places, become toxic with the pollutants that 8 billion people create.
    Furthermore, to provide a child with the Western ideal of a "normal" upbringing is totally unsustainable as a global norm. It is to the point now where, to provide that living standard for your children, it means you are abusing children somewhere else on our planet…just something else to consider.

  13. @NeeceeNay

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    19:04 according to videos from various angles as well as KM's statement regarding the incident (as well as his guiding her by the boob), the slime bag was interposing himself between the shooter and her. They are scum, but we have to keep truth on our side because anything slightly untruthful gives them ammunition. ✌❤🤘

  14. @RedRoseWhite

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    10:08 I have a friend who needed a termination for medical reasons and was able to get one because it happened before Dobbs. She and her husband subsequently decided not to try and have any more children because if she miscarried again, quality of care would be absent. If the US gov’t really wants to raise the birth rate, they need to make it safe for women to get pregnant even if something might go wrong.

  15. @Jaye419-w8m

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    Look at the profile of the winner of American Idol– mother of three, in her mid-twenties, sews her own clothes. I don't know what else came out from the weekly shows about her. They had 'social voting' for the first time this year, which helped her win. Do you think the evangelicals/trad wives organized and voted, voted, voted to help her win?

  16. @forkmcspoon198

    May 16, 2026 at 7:38 am

    Do you know what makes people not want to have children? Uncertain, unsafe times in which you don't know if you can afford food for yourself, let alone new mouths. Know what makes people want to have children? Safe places with plentiful resources and support where they feel they can afford to bring another life into the world.

Leave a Reply





This area can contain widgets, menus, shortcodes and custom content. You can manage it from the Customizer, in the Second layer section.

 

 

 

  • play_circle_filled

    92.9 : The Torch

  • play_circle_filled

    AGGRO
    'Til Deaf Do Us Part...

  • play_circle_filled

    SLACK!
    The Music That Made Gen-X

  • play_circle_filled

    KUDZU
    The Northwoods' Alt-Country & Americana

  • play_circle_filled

    BOOZHOO
    Indigenous Radio

  • play_circle_filled

    THE FLOW
    The Northwoods' Hip Hop and R&B

play_arrow skip_previous skip_next volume_down
playlist_play