Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow speaks with Jonathan Capehart
Mallory McMorrow, she of the blistering counterattack against Republicans whipping up a blood libel against the left, has some advice:
“My hope is that there are a lot more people like me, who see what I did and say, ‘We have to stand up and fight back.’ Because this strategy is not going away,” she told me when I interviewed her Sunday. “This is the playbook … and we may get to a place where we’re out of time and we can’t afford to fight back.”
Since her speech, McMorrow said, many LGBTQ friends have told her they are exhausted by having to defend themselves against charges of pedophilia or grooming. “We can’t constantly ask the community that’s targeted to defend themselves. I am not marginalized, and it’s going to take a lot more people like me to take the hits,” she said. “If we keep taking the hits, people like me, we take away its power. We owe it to our neighbors and our friends who are just trying to live.”
What McMorrow did was textbook allyship. It was also a blueprint for Democrats who are accustomed to cowering in fear of Republican culture war attacks. Too many national Democrats are letting the incipient “groomer” charges go unchallenged or are assuming they’re too ridiculous to gain traction. They’re ridiculous, yes — but that doesn’t mean they can’t gain traction. (Have you seen today’s Republican Party?)
McMorrow is right to urge her party to “stand in our morals, stand in our values, stand for our families, and call it out for the absolute nonsense that it is.” This applies to any form of GOP bigotry. It’s not enough to, say, put up a black square on your Instagram feed and proclaim that Black Lives Matter. You can’t just talk about your beliefs. You have to act on them.
Please do. Republicans are “doubling and tripling down on this,” McMorrow warns. Don’t wait to push back until it’s too late. “We can’t afford that,” says McMorrow.
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