The Mallory McMorrow Fallacy

[Celerity]

https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/the-mallory-mcmorrow-fallacy

Mallory McMorrow is having a moment. The Michigan legislator made a short speech assailing a fellow legislator who had accused her in a fundraising email of “grooming and sexualizing” kindergartners, which was subsequently viewed millions of times on McMorrow’s Twitter feed. Her message, delivered with some well-chosen personal touches, boiled down to: stand up to hate. The speech was rapturously received in Democratic circles, particularly among activists and Democratic-leaning pundits. One went so far as to compare McMorrow to Nelson Mandela and Vaclav Havel. And many asserted that here, finally, was a blueprint for an effective Democratic midterm strategy.

Democrats should contain their enthusiasm. When you think about it, what McMorrow is recommending is basically what Democrats have already been doing—calling out their opponents for being hateful, bigoted and/or racist—but doing it more loudly and unequivocally. The idea here seems to be that a message’s effectiveness is directly proportional to the vigor with which it is asserted. This is a fallacy. If a message has underlying weaknesses and fails to connect to significant and real voter concerns, it will not become more effective by simply increasing the volume. The weaknesses will still be there and voters’ concerns will not magically go away.

Terry McAuliffe discovered this in his Virginia gubernatorial campaign where he steadily increased the volume on his characterization of Glenn Youngkin’s rhetoric and policies as racist and got nowhere. Voters’ concerns about what was going on in education and the schools were not adequately addressed by the enhanced decibel level.

Similarly, the Florida Parental Rights in Education bill, which is an important part of the background for McMorrow’s speech, has not lacked for high volume denunciations and linked accusations of hatred and bigotry. Yet Florida governor Ron DeSantis is more popular than ever. Polls have shown that some parts of the law are well-received by voters in general. The fact is that there are real issues in Florida and nationwide about whether gender fluidity is an appropriate topic for school children, particularly young children, and about parental involvement in education, especially what can and cannot be kept secret from parents—issues that may be poorly addressed by the Florida bill, but are issues nonetheless.

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