Nashville Web Developer’s Viral Offer of Help Becomes Ad Hoc Political Organizing Tool

Update: Morris allegedly has a history of using abusive and discriminatory language online. Read more here. When asked about the allegations, Morris responded with an image of a fabricated Pith tweet disparaging minorities.

On Saturday afternoon, as the U.S. Senate readied to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Nashville web developer Shane Morris was frustrated.

“I realized that I’m one person, and I can’t run for every elected office in every state, county, district, whatever,” he tells the Scene. “But I realized that I had a skill set that would be useful for people who might want to try and flip an otherwise red district.”

So he tweeted.

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Morris expected a few retweets and interest from maybe one potential candidate, for a local state House or Metro Council seat. Instead, the tweet took off (it had more than 15,000 retweets as of Tuesday morning), and around 150 potential candidates from all over the country — considering runs for everything from alderman to president — have taken him up on the offer.

“I was kind of having a panic attack,” he says. “I was like, 'Oh dude, I’m going to have to make like 100 websites.' ”

But the panic turned to inspiration. Developers, graphic designers and other volunteers began reaching out offering to help him with the task. He spent much of Sunday and Monday setting up a Slack channel for the potential candidates and tech volunteers and building a website, flip.blue, which launched Tuesday morning. The site will allow candidates and volunteers to sign up for the ad hoc initiative.

Morris has built political websites before, but 90 percent of his work is for music industry and other entertainment clients. Building a website and digital platform for a band and building one for a political candidate are remarkably similar, Morris says. They both sell merchandise, they both want you to sign up for an email list, they both want you to come to their events.

“Really, the only difference between a political website and a band website is the FEC filings and making sure you have your paperwork in order,” Morris says. “Obviously they’re not selling records, but the same things apply the same way. In terms of putting that together on the internet, it’s the same thing.”

Morris points to insurgent liberals like Beto O’Rourke in Texas, Andrew Gillum in Florida and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York as models for his program — candidates who have used the internet to build momentum for their campaigns.

Says Morris, “With a good digital platform that was reasonably well organized by some professionals who were donating their time, I think a lot of people look at stories like that and say, ‘Well, if I just had the platform and I could promote it, I could get donations, I know a lot of people who’d be willing to give me 50 bucks,’ and all of the sudden they’re actually a real contending candidate, either locally or at a state level."

Yes, Morris has considered the legal ramifications of his suddenly expanded project. He has consulted with an attorney and contends that his company’s website lists a base price of $2,000 for building a website, below the $2,700 max donation for federal candidates. What's more, he's building a single template that will allow the volunteer developers to build each candidate’s website in around three hours, further reducing the value of the in-kind donation.

“I'm sure that there will be some legal gymnastics to do,” says Morris, who adds that he plans to run for something himself in 2020. “If the Koch brothers can hire attorneys to figure out how to give money a thousand different ways to all their conservative candidates, I'm sure I can find an attorney willing to donate their time.”