“You know what, Mr. Speaker, I’m not fascinated by sex, but I am fascinated by protection of women and understanding what we’re getting in the Oval Office,” Kelly replied.

It’s ironic to hear Newt Gingrich criticizing anyone as “fascinated with sex.” My colleague James Fallows has written on what he sees as Donald Trump’s tendency to project his own personality on others, and Gingrich seems to be adopting the tic. As speaker of the House, he found Bill Clinton’s personal sexual ethics important enough to merit the second successful presidential impeachment in American history. His personal life suggests a certain fascination with copulation as well: He left his first wife after beginning an affair with Marianne Gingrich who would become his second wife. He divorced her, too, after striking up an affair with Callista Bisek, who would become his third wife; according to Marianne Gingrich, he separated after she turned down his request for an open marriage.

The exchange is emblematic of a dynamic in the campaign dating to Trump’s dust-up with Kelly in August 2015. Repeatedly, conservative women have raised concerns about Trump’s language and treatment of women, and repeatedly, conservative men have not merely disagreed with them but have dismissed their concerns as evidence of bias or foolishness or identity politics.

Take the debate moment. Kelly’s question has been rather overshadowed by the aftermath, but it was about his treatment of women:

You’ve called women you don’t like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” … Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who was likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?

At the time, Trump downplayed his comments, pivoting to a critique of “political correctness.” But the next day, he fired back with a remark widely taken as a joke about menstruation. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her …. wherever.” It wasn’t enough to simply dismiss Kelly’s concerns; Trump had to deliver a sexist retort.

Kelly’s question proved prescient. Trump is now struggling with women voters, just as she had suggested he might. But his defenders have not learned any lessons. On Tuesday, Gingrich couldn’t simply argue that the focus on accusations of sexual assault against Trump was misguided; he had to accuse Kelly of an obsession with sex.

The pattern is especially galling to conservative women who spent years mounting good-faith defenses of the Republican Party against that “war on women” charge from Democrats. Now they find that the GOP is validating the Democratic narrative—and to boot, few Republican men seem to have their back.