What it's like being falsely tagged as a child molester. How Michigan Senator Mallory McMorrow battled the ugliest of political attacks
Democrat talks about the experience with Iowa media after Clear Lake gathering
A head-spinningly bizarre twist to one of the ugliest political episodes in these most uncivil of times is that the Michigan state legislator, Republican Lana Theis, who falsely accused her Democratic colleague, Mallory McMorrow, of wanting to molest children, had spoken with McMorrow weeks before the fund-raising email about having dinner, the two women, one Republican, the other Democrat, with their husbands, McMorrow said in Iowa following a major Democratic event here.
Michigan State Sen. Lana Theis used an April fund-raising email as a vehicle to charge that McMorrow, a state senator, wanted to “groom and sexualize kindergartners.” The reason, Theis cited: McMorrow’s support of LGBTQ+ rights.
“Look, I mean it was horrible,” McMorrow said in an interview with media following the recent northern Iowa Democratic Party Wing Ding in Clear Lake. “I learned about it, and I’m a mom of a 1 year old. This is effectively a colleague accusing me of grooming children to molest them with no basis in reality.”
McMorrow said she spent time with her daughter on the evening the attack went public.
“I just started crying, and my mom asked me, ‘How can you still do this?’” McMorrow said.
Did McMorrow ever think about quitting?
“Of course,” she said. “I mean this is not what you sign up for.”
Instead, McMorrow responded with a forceful speech that went viral. It has more than 15 million views on Twitter alone. In the now-iconic speech, McMorrow debunked the savage lie linked to her name, called out the strategy of using such lies, and turned the incident around, raising her profile and boosting her campaign war chest and national profile.
But the lie lurks on the Internet, in places easy to find, and in spots far, far darker. Friends worry about her safety, McMorrow said.
“Their fear was somebody was going to come to my house and open fire, and that is where these attacks lead,” McMorrow said in response to questions from The Iowa Mercury following the Clear Lake speech. “Luckily, we have not gotten to a place where it has gotten that bad, but every now and and then, I will post on my Twitter account or Instagram story some of the emails that we get and they’re really vicious.”
McMorrow said the deployment of outrageous character assassination, of lies the tellers know are untrue but traffic in anyway, must end politically, with the removal from power of politicians who use such tactics.
“The reason that it’s happening, that it’s moving into the mainstream, is because this version of the Republican Party think it’s a winning strategy.”
McMorrow said she spent relatively little time in the crucible compared to gay colleagues and Black Americans who have to endure insult and fear 24/7.
In her Clear Lake speech McMorrow said the goal of the modern Republican Party is to wear down opponents with awful allegations, to make the process so miserable that their opponents, Democrats or more moderate Republicans, quit.
But the nation is largely populated by what McMorrow described as a “decent majority,” and she plans to stay in the fight.
Theis recently won a GOP primary. She has not apologized to McMorrow, and McMorrow says she’s not inclined to accept one.
Let us assume this accusation happened in Iowa (I have my own examples of being on the receiving end of hatred, and bigotry, based on religion and LGBT--those were 30+ years ago, however). Where can a candidate go today who finds themself in this position? Where can the 2022 candidates go to? What would the heads of each of the major Parties do? Would they chastise or abandon the candidate?