I rarely link the Intercept, but to give credit where due, @ryangrim did a great job exposing this travesty of justice and gross weaponization of MeToo

Let me summarize -

1/ https://theintercept.com/2020/08/12/alex-morse-college-democrats-chats/

Alex Morse is a 31-year-old small town mayor, an out gay man, who was running to primary Democrat Richard Neal.

At some point, Morse matched on Tinder with a guy who is affiliated with UMass College Dems, but they did not exchange messages.

2/

Morse came to speak to UMass college Dems where he was introduced to that guy, Andrew Abramson.

After the event they exchanged the following messages:

3/

That's it. That's the scandal.

UMass College Dems used this exchange to justify their claim that Morse was a predator who was no longer welcome at their events.

Text messages in the linked article show they tried to bait him into incriminating himself.

4/

They charged that he “sought out students that he met at our events privately on social media, in a manner widely understood by our generation to indicate intimacy.”

What does this even mean? And is there something wrong with it?

5/

They say he abused his power as mayor, but they also say he was deceptive because his dating app profiles do not indicate that he is mayor.

Which is it?

6/

This has been tragically blown our of proportion, sparking debates about whether students can date their professors (not remotely the case here)

To me, the abuse of power is on the part of UMass Dems for their baseless accusation, designed to curry favor with Richard Neal.

7/

But this begs the question - In the era of MeToo run amok, can unmarried politicians safely even date?

It looks to me like Morse did everything right.

8/

We had this conversation a few years ago, about Members dating. There was talk of barring Members from dating staffers for other Members, but it didn't happen.

Once you go down that road, it's hard to find anyone Members can safely date.

9/

We talked about it again with Katie Hill hiring her girlfriend on her campaign.

People hook up on campaigns. You're away from home, working long hours, fighting for the same cause, drinking a lot.

Not saying it's smart, but it's going to happen.

10/

There's an inherent imbalance of power to any relationship. It's not something you can legislate or moralize away.

Public service shouldn't be like the priesthood. Being single should not be a barrier to entry.

11/

It sounds like Alex Morse is smart enough not to say or do anything stupid in this era of screenshot cancellations.

Remember this idiot? He was only in Congress for three weeks.

12/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gop-congressman-christopher-lee-resigns-over-craigslist-scandal/

Let's hope Alex Morse has a bright future.

And perhaps Andrew Abramson and Timothy Ennis should change their majors. They're radioactive now.

Neal spokesperson @norton_Kate is pretty disgusting too for egging them on.

13/

I would say how disappointing it is that young people are so traumatized by a simple friendly overture, but it's clear in this case Abramson wasn't traumatized at all.

He just saw an opportunity to PRETEND he was traumatized.

14/

This is shameful on part of @CollegeDemsofMA

The only "abuse of power" is on them. They used their positions of leadership to cast spurious and libelous allegations to score political points.

They should answer for this.

15/

Maybe this can be the start of a long-overdue conversation about the misappropriation and overreach of MeToo.

If we stop falling for it, it won't work.

16/

The Massachusetts primary is September 1.

Please donate what you can to send the message that we stand with Alex Morse, and let Richard Neal know that such tactics are unacceptable.

I NEVER do this, work against sitting Dems. That's how pissed off I am. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/standwithalexmorse