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I don't like Donald Trump any more than the next person (and I would never vote for him), but watching people line up actively encouraging punishing (or firing)

I don't like Donald Trump any more than the next person (and I would never vote for him), but watching people line up actively encouraging punishing (or firing) people based on who they voted for is crazy, especially because about half the country voted for the guy. I come from a small town where Trump dominated Clinton, and most people I know voted for Trump holding their noses. They considered him to be a less-bad option, and Thiel even said as much in interviews. Yet folks are being smeared for being "complicit" and dragged as if they are Trump, or agree with everything he stands for. I don't think that's ever happened before, at least publicly. Every candidate I've ever seen has major flaws, and people that lack those flaws and even despise those flaws voted for them anyway. I get that Trump is particularly incompetent, but if voting for a candidate that wins the election is a punishable offense maybe we should rethink our political activism.

mbillie1 9y ago
Except that the google engineer this article refers to was not punished or fired for supporting Trump; he was fired for circulating a memo which claimed there were immutable biological reasons why approximately 50% of the workforce was unfit to work in his industry.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- soVeryTired 9y ago
  Come on. I think some of his arguments were flawed but that's not what he said. For christ's sake.
  - vkou 9y ago
    He claimed that women are more neurotic and emotional, that it negatively correlates with engineering performance, and that it is the reason why they aren't succeeding. He claims that, therefore, we should make software engineering more emotional and people-focused.
    - Chris2048 9y ago
      Which is different to "50% of the workforce [is] unfit". There is at least a statistical aspect that you drop in favor of absolutes.
      - soVeryTired 9y ago
        Even then, that's still not what he said.
- mdorazio 9y ago
  Please quote from his manifesto where he actually said anything like that. You're both misinterpreting and sensationalizing, which does not help the conversation.
shanev 9y ago
Correction: half the country didn't vote for Trump. Half the country didn't vote. About quarter of the country voted for him.
- xienze 9y ago
  Because surely the half that didn't vote wouldn't have voted for him either. So really, when you think about it, 75% of the country voted for Clinton.
  - kazagistar 9y ago
    ... wat? You cant just count nonvoters for your candidate. They chose not to vote as a way to say your candidate sucks.
    - xienze 9y ago
      Well you obviously missed the sarcasm. I was making fun of the stupidity of the "ACKSHUALLY only 25% of the country voted for him" argument, which is needless pedantry and ignores that we can infer how the rest of the country _likely_ would have voted since we have such a large sample size.
      - danharaj 9y ago
        You realize that {people who voted} is no where near an independent random sample and has far less power than its size suggests?
  - theWatcher37 9y ago
    This is a rediculous assertion
- notyourloops 9y ago
  Half the voting population voted for him.
- Chris2048 9y ago
xienze 9y ago
> I don't think that's ever happened before, at least publicly. The left got pretty hysterical about Bush too (did you know he was a Nazi, just like Trump?). I would not be surprised if being outed as a Bush voter would have been considered career-limiting in SV at the time. What has changed in the time since is a dramatic increase in our ability to discover and record people engaged in wrongthink and let our outrage go viral through social media.
justinsaccount 9y ago
> especially because about half the country voted for the guy. 46.6% didn't vote 25.6% voted for Hillary Clinton 25.5% voted for Donald Trump
- kazagistar 9y ago
  Sure then, a quarter of the country, and three quarters didn't vote for the "right" candidate. The point still stands.
- austenallred 9y ago
  You're right. I should have said half of the country that voted voted for him
MichaelGG 9y ago
I'm pretty sure the media has a large part to blame. By getting the view out that Trump was so bad, people started really believing it. You can see it in articles or tweets where parents say their young children are frightened. Kids don't analyze politics, they just believe what you tell them. So what have these kids been told or seen that actually made them scared? After the election I saw people, smart people that work in the physical sciences, crying. Yelling that people will be killed now. That they should give up on their careers as it no longer matters. These people obviously have bought into something along the lines of "literally Hitler". And if you really believe that, then his supporters are "basically Nazis". And given how Nazis are portrayed (and not just them, anyone involved in Germany's WWII effort is labeled a Nazi regardless if they were), anyone remotely like them forfeits all rights. So it's not about disagreeing on any particular issues. It's that in their mind, the US just elected a monster and there's no excusing it. This makes sense if you believe he's literally an evil monster. Just saying "politics!" doesn't give people a free pass to think or do anything at all.
- boobsbr 9y ago
  > After the election I saw people, smart people that work in the physical sciences, crying. Yelling that people will be killed now. That they should give up on their careers as it no longer matters. The reactions captured on video seem to indicate some serious psychological issues with these people.
- archagon 9y ago
  Trump is unlike any president we’ve had before and crying is hardly an overreaction. Many government organizations are losing funding and leadership. We might lose our access to healthcare. A number of Trump's new hires were chosen to dismantle or loot their respective branches. There's a non-zero chance we'll get into a nuclear exchange with North Korea. The White House routinely issues statements supporting police overreach and denying domestic terrorism. Climate change is outright mocked. Our traditional alliances are in shambles, even among our neighbors. The only thing tempering Trump's authoritarian impulses is seemingly the fact that the Republican Party is in total disarray. And to top it all off, the man spews abhorrent, childish garbage almost daily on Twitter. Our fucking president! All this was easily predictable before the election. How is this flaming pile of garbage not worth crying about? Are you seriously suggesting that any of this is normal?
DiNovi 9y ago
No candidate since Nixon ran on an explicitly white victimhood platform and that is why people are being treated like this. Trump is a liar but also emotionally honest; people knew what they were voting for when they "held their noses" and that's no excuse
- at-fates-hands 9y ago
  Most of my friends who voted for Trump did so for one reason. They were sick of Republicans getting battered by the media and their opponents. Every time the Republicans put up a "nice guy" the media skewered them along with their Democratic opponent. Think Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney. All decent guys, completely dismantled by their opponents and the media and turned into evil men during their campaigns. My friends voted for Trump because he was a straight up brawler. The guy didn't back down, he didn't apologize, and was a flame thrower. Clinton tried and tried to go after him and everything fell flat. He went after her, labeled her "crooked Hilary" which his base ate up. He talked about her husband being a rapist and how she allowed it and they went nuts about that. Nothing was off the table and it kept her completely off balance, she had no comebacks for most of his attacks. The media went after him and what happened? He punched back - repeatedly and they were unprepared for him. Called him a joke, derided him, tried to bring him down. He just kept coming back and countered with something they weren't reporting on, or the polls being way off, or any other number of issues. The media were so unprepared to deal with him, even more so now that he's been elected. In one election, he completely dismantled the MSM and convinced half the country they couldn't be trusted. How many times a day do you hear the term "fake news" now? Trump started that. Now the media can't get away from it and now it's a part of our political lexicon. CNN is no longer a reputable news organization because Trump called them out repeatedly, their reputation is in tatters because of him. The Republican base ate him up and loved the fact they finally had a candidate who played in the mud and never tried to be the "nice guy" and fought the media and Democrats with everything he had. It's not that they knew what they were getting, it was more about pushing back the Liberal ideology, and feeling like they had someone who would fight for them.
  - cafard 9y ago
    Those I know who voted from Trump did so because they objected to Clinton politically. They did not in the least like Trump. I don't remember anyone speaking of Dole, McCain, or Romney as evil. Frankly, Donald Trump has said crappier things about McCain than anyone on the Democratic side ever did. Romney did get slammed on his statement that some percentage of the population was freeloading. CNN is as reputable a news organization as it ever was. It may well be in worse odor with the Republican base because of Trump's statements, but I don't think it was ever that popular with them. And let's face it, Fox News has a 25-year investment in depicting Hillary Clinton as bad. If we're going to talk about CNN saying bad stuff about Dole, we should probably go back and think of all the folks who pushed the notion that Hillary Clinton arranged the death of Vincent Foster.
matt4077 9y ago
I wouldn't fire anyone to punish them for their decision in the voting booth. I would, however, consider firing someone who voted for Trump because of their lack in critical thinking skills–if such skills are relevant to their job. The difference is in the employer's motivation. Say you've hired someone with a medical condition as a truck driver. As it turns out, they tend to randomly fall asleep at the wheel every few weeks. If you can't find a job where it's safe for them to do so, you will probably have to let them go. That doesn't mean that you harbour ill will towards them, or that you seek to punish them for this behaviour (that they have no control over). It only means that it's a bad fit. But, to be honest, there are certainly people who wish others to be fired based on their vote. But that isn't actually a new phenomenon: it's the basic reason behind the principle of the secret ballot. If people voluntarily let others know how they voted, all the usual mechanisms of social feedback will kick in: Because people feel that a vote for Trump has and/or will harm themselves or others, they will treat the people who did it with the same sort of retribution they would inflict on someone they saw littering, or hitting their dog, or any number of actions they consider harmful.
- austenallred 9y ago
  So don't fire them for their political views, but fire them because they're stupid, which is exhibited by their political views.
- 21 9y ago
  Would also considering firing somebody for their lack in critical thinking skills if said persons believes in, let's say, an all powerful being, and who guides part of his life based on sacred texts which are not subject to criticism?

mbillie1 9y ago

Except that the google engineer this article refers to was not punished or fired for supporting Trump; he was fired for circulating a memo which claimed there were immutable biological reasons why approximately 50% of the workforce was unfit to work in his industry.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
soVeryTired 9y ago
Come on. I think some of his arguments were flawed but that's not what he said. For christ's sake.
- vkou 9y ago
  He claimed that women are more neurotic and emotional, that it negatively correlates with engineering performance, and that it is the reason why they aren't succeeding. He claims that, therefore, we should make software engineering more emotional and people-focused.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    Which is different to "50% of the workforce [is] unfit". There is at least a statistical aspect that you drop in favor of absolutes.
    - soVeryTired 9y ago
      Even then, that's still not what he said.
mdorazio 9y ago
Please quote from his manifesto where he actually said anything like that. You're both misinterpreting and sensationalizing, which does not help the conversation.

shanev 9y ago

Correction: half the country didn't vote for Trump. Half the country didn't vote. About quarter of the country voted for him.

xienze 9y ago
Because surely the half that didn't vote wouldn't have voted for him either. So really, when you think about it, 75% of the country voted for Clinton.
- kazagistar 9y ago
  ... wat? You cant just count nonvoters for your candidate. They chose not to vote as a way to say your candidate sucks.
  - xienze 9y ago
    Well you obviously missed the sarcasm. I was making fun of the stupidity of the "ACKSHUALLY only 25% of the country voted for him" argument, which is needless pedantry and ignores that we can infer how the rest of the country _likely_ would have voted since we have such a large sample size.
    - danharaj 9y ago
      You realize that {people who voted} is no where near an independent random sample and has far less power than its size suggests?
- theWatcher37 9y ago
  This is a rediculous assertion
notyourloops 9y ago
Half the voting population voted for him.
Chris2048 9y ago

xienze 9y ago

> I don't think that's ever happened before, at least publicly. The left got pretty hysterical about Bush too (did you know he was a Nazi, just like Trump?). I would not be surprised if being outed as a Bush voter would have been considered career-limiting in SV at the time. What has changed in the time since is a dramatic increase in our ability to discover and record people engaged in wrongthink and let our outrage go viral through social media.

justinsaccount 9y ago

> especially because about half the country voted for the guy. 46.6% didn't vote 25.6% voted for Hillary Clinton 25.5% voted for Donald Trump

kazagistar 9y ago
Sure then, a quarter of the country, and three quarters didn't vote for the "right" candidate. The point still stands.
austenallred 9y ago
You're right. I should have said half of the country that voted voted for him

MichaelGG 9y ago

I'm pretty sure the media has a large part to blame. By getting the view out that Trump was so bad, people started really believing it. You can see it in articles or tweets where parents say their young children are frightened. Kids don't analyze politics, they just believe what you tell them. So what have these kids been told or seen that actually made them scared? After the election I saw people, smart people that work in the physical sciences, crying. Yelling that people will be killed now. That they should give up on their careers as it no longer matters. These people obviously have bought into something along the lines of "literally Hitler". And if you really believe that, then his supporters are "basically Nazis". And given how Nazis are portrayed (and not just them, anyone involved in Germany's WWII effort is labeled a Nazi regardless if they were), anyone remotely like them forfeits all rights. So it's not about disagreeing on any particular issues. It's that in their mind, the US just elected a monster and there's no excusing it. This makes sense if you believe he's literally an evil monster. Just saying "politics!" doesn't give people a free pass to think or do anything at all.

boobsbr 9y ago
> After the election I saw people, smart people that work in the physical sciences, crying. Yelling that people will be killed now. That they should give up on their careers as it no longer matters. The reactions captured on video seem to indicate some serious psychological issues with these people.
archagon 9y ago
Trump is unlike any president we’ve had before and crying is hardly an overreaction. Many government organizations are losing funding and leadership. We might lose our access to healthcare. A number of Trump's new hires were chosen to dismantle or loot their respective branches. There's a non-zero chance we'll get into a nuclear exchange with North Korea. The White House routinely issues statements supporting police overreach and denying domestic terrorism. Climate change is outright mocked. Our traditional alliances are in shambles, even among our neighbors. The only thing tempering Trump's authoritarian impulses is seemingly the fact that the Republican Party is in total disarray. And to top it all off, the man spews abhorrent, childish garbage almost daily on Twitter. Our fucking president! All this was easily predictable before the election. How is this flaming pile of garbage not worth crying about? Are you seriously suggesting that any of this is normal?

DiNovi 9y ago

No candidate since Nixon ran on an explicitly white victimhood platform and that is why people are being treated like this. Trump is a liar but also emotionally honest; people knew what they were voting for when they "held their noses" and that's no excuse

at-fates-hands 9y ago
Most of my friends who voted for Trump did so for one reason. They were sick of Republicans getting battered by the media and their opponents. Every time the Republicans put up a "nice guy" the media skewered them along with their Democratic opponent. Think Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney. All decent guys, completely dismantled by their opponents and the media and turned into evil men during their campaigns. My friends voted for Trump because he was a straight up brawler. The guy didn't back down, he didn't apologize, and was a flame thrower. Clinton tried and tried to go after him and everything fell flat. He went after her, labeled her "crooked Hilary" which his base ate up. He talked about her husband being a rapist and how she allowed it and they went nuts about that. Nothing was off the table and it kept her completely off balance, she had no comebacks for most of his attacks. The media went after him and what happened? He punched back - repeatedly and they were unprepared for him. Called him a joke, derided him, tried to bring him down. He just kept coming back and countered with something they weren't reporting on, or the polls being way off, or any other number of issues. The media were so unprepared to deal with him, even more so now that he's been elected. In one election, he completely dismantled the MSM and convinced half the country they couldn't be trusted. How many times a day do you hear the term "fake news" now? Trump started that. Now the media can't get away from it and now it's a part of our political lexicon. CNN is no longer a reputable news organization because Trump called them out repeatedly, their reputation is in tatters because of him. The Republican base ate him up and loved the fact they finally had a candidate who played in the mud and never tried to be the "nice guy" and fought the media and Democrats with everything he had. It's not that they knew what they were getting, it was more about pushing back the Liberal ideology, and feeling like they had someone who would fight for them.
- cafard 9y ago
  Those I know who voted from Trump did so because they objected to Clinton politically. They did not in the least like Trump. I don't remember anyone speaking of Dole, McCain, or Romney as evil. Frankly, Donald Trump has said crappier things about McCain than anyone on the Democratic side ever did. Romney did get slammed on his statement that some percentage of the population was freeloading. CNN is as reputable a news organization as it ever was. It may well be in worse odor with the Republican base because of Trump's statements, but I don't think it was ever that popular with them. And let's face it, Fox News has a 25-year investment in depicting Hillary Clinton as bad. If we're going to talk about CNN saying bad stuff about Dole, we should probably go back and think of all the folks who pushed the notion that Hillary Clinton arranged the death of Vincent Foster.

matt4077 9y ago

I wouldn't fire anyone to punish them for their decision in the voting booth. I would, however, consider firing someone who voted for Trump because of their lack in critical thinking skills–if such skills are relevant to their job. The difference is in the employer's motivation. Say you've hired someone with a medical condition as a truck driver. As it turns out, they tend to randomly fall asleep at the wheel every few weeks. If you can't find a job where it's safe for them to do so, you will probably have to let them go. That doesn't mean that you harbour ill will towards them, or that you seek to punish them for this behaviour (that they have no control over). It only means that it's a bad fit. But, to be honest, there are certainly people who wish others to be fired based on their vote. But that isn't actually a new phenomenon: it's the basic reason behind the principle of the secret ballot. If people voluntarily let others know how they voted, all the usual mechanisms of social feedback will kick in: Because people feel that a vote for Trump has and/or will harm themselves or others, they will treat the people who did it with the same sort of retribution they would inflict on someone they saw littering, or hitting their dog, or any number of actions they consider harmful.

austenallred 9y ago
So don't fire them for their political views, but fire them because they're stupid, which is exhibited by their political views.
21 9y ago
Would also considering firing somebody for their lack in critical thinking skills if said persons believes in, let's say, an all powerful being, and who guides part of his life based on sacred texts which are not subject to criticism?