The usual argument runs that this time is unique, that Trump has embraced racism and violence and his major-party status should not bury that. That he is effectively (sometimes "literally") a facist, and should be treated as such. I think it's an inadequate, alarming response.
Just about half of voters will back Trump. At that scale, silencing and marginalizing them is impossible, so whether it's moral doesn't really matter. Shunning influences people when it cuts them off from their social circles, but most of the people embracing shunning admit they know 0-1 Trump supporters. It's not going to marginalize anyone, just deepen a divide between the groups.
Even if Trump were quite literally Mussolini 2.0, firing and shunning his supporters wouldn't end his candidacy. In fact, refusing to engage with facists has historically pushed them further, letting them build their beliefs unopposed.
I respected Altman's explanation. It doesn't matter that Trump is different, or that Thiel donated an exceptional amount (particularly since it was in line with his wealth). Firing people for simple support or donations makes this problem worse, so no amount of importance is a justification.
Are you sure? Prop 8 was _passed_ (i.e. it was voted in favor of by more than half of California's population), and yet we still regularly hold witch hunts for people that supported it. I've actually been asked about it on a job application.
It seems like that's probably illegal, though here's hopefully some nuance:
It probably shouldn't be illegal. The parts of the civil rights legislation that reach into the private sector should be probably be repealed/sunsetted. It should be sufficient to have the government actually recognize/implement equal protection under the law. E.g., if the KKK burns down the local shop that serves people of color or is owned by a person of color, the police should bring the KKK members to justice.
To keep going, while it shouldn't be illegal, it shouldn't be encouraged either. The employer has their right to free expression and voluntary association but they should strive/remain-vigilant to uphold the spirit of free speech and tolerance even if the law does not compel them to. For those with such self-discipline, their reward is access to the broader, richer market of rational peoples of every stripe.
It's more productive for us to concentrate on the arguments that are actually being made. You don't have to, of course, but I don't think you'll get very far otherwise.
Except that democratic voting systems are set up to make to make it impossible to prove who you voted for.
When the narrative was "Thiel's connection to YC is about prestige, so YC should sever that connection to preserve its reputation", I found it basically reasonable.
But if the narrative is "Disavowing Thiel will make Trump-supporting founders uncomfortable with coming to YC, or uncomfortable admitting their support?" Then we've jumped to punishing people professionally for being in a group comprising 40%+ of the country.
Hounding founders who support Trump (who, perhaps, don't even donate or like many of his views) seems to go straight into the awful kind of patronage/exclusion politics that's being condemned here.
I'm not trying to be uncharitable here - I honestly don't follow. One possibility is that since YC founders often end up quite wealthy, you're talking about discouraging the next Thiel rather than discouraging business with Trump supporters in general?
To be clear, I am not a Trump supporter, but dehumanizing Trump supporters is not a productive approach.
Cutting people off only further isolates them. If you really want to convert Trump supporters, you have to show them the error of their ways gradually, just like with everything else. Writing them off as irredeemable based on their political preferences is not only inadvisable, but fundamentally destructive of the binding social fabric of the republic.
What might interest you more is that I agree with you about Brendan Eich. I think Eich's situation is nothing at all like that of Thiel's. Eich was a full-time employee of Mozilla. From what I know of the situation, Eich hadn't made any of his employees at Mozilla uncomfortable. Eich's support for Proposition 8 was quiet: people dug it out of a database to use against him. And while I disagree with the stance he took against marriage equality, opposition to marriage equality doesn't challenge equal access to the channels of democracy. Eich wasn't campaigning to remove the Muslims from our country, or to imprison those who disagree with him.
What happened to Eich was wrong.
But nothing like that is happening here.
As a European looking from the outside and more than aware of this history, I see the media goose-stepping to the tune of one campaign which uses it to stoke up moral outrage about their opposition of which this story is a current symptom. The candidate that rhymes with history is not the chaotic/offensive TV personality.
What?! Of course it was - history time: the small feller with moustaches joined an anti-capitalist workers party. It's in the name - it was socialist but nationalist so anti-communist but still decidedly to the left of say the DNC today. Check the manifesto including things like banning rentiers, seizing land, obligating pensions and this little gem "We want all very big corporations to be owned by the government" etc. The moral is that its not where you start, its where you go that matters.
Source: I read a biography on Hitler, but I don't have time to go track down the exact citations/references. This page might be a good start:
There were factions in the Nazi Party, both conservative and radical.[23] The conservative Nazi Hermann Göring urged Hitler to conciliate with capitalists and reactionaries.[23] Other prominent conservative Nazis included Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich.[24]
The radical Nazi Joseph Goebbels hated capitalism, viewing it as having Jews at its core, and he stressed the need for the party to emphasise both a proletarian and national character. Those views were shared by Otto Strasser, who later left the Nazi Party in the belief that Hitler had betrayed the party's socialist goals by allegedly endorsing capitalism.[23] Large segments of the Nazi Party staunchly supported its official socialist, revolutionary, and anti-capitalist positions and expected both a social and economic revolution upon the party's gaining power in 1933.[25] Many of the million members of the Sturmabteilung (SA) were committed to the party's official socialist program.[25] The leader of the SA, Ernst Röhm, pushed for a "second revolution" (the "first revolution" being the Nazis' seizure of power) that would entrench the party's official socialist program. Further, Röhm desired that the SA absorb the much smaller German Army into its ranks under his leadership.[25]
Boycotts are a form of speech. The right to criticize is inalienable.
Second, if you think that firing an employee for their political beliefs is a straw man, you should be standing up for Palmer Luckey in this case.
Yes there is in fact a campaign of elites against Trump, in case you don't believe that I suggest taking a look at the recent wikileaks.
I can't imagine why half the country won't vote for her.
I know minorities and women who will still vote for Trump after everything that has happened; perhaps it'd be wise if you dislike Trump to understand why that is and what has brought us to this point instead of putting your head in the sand.
The ruling class is ruling, in substantial parts because they are better at cooperating than other classes (and are good at seeding discord in other classes). One aspect of ruling class cooperation is ruthlessly punishing their own class traitors.
I suspect that is part of what the whole saga is about.
P.S. I hate having to add a disclaimer like this, but: I'm genuinely interested.
Trump might be elite compared to the average Joe on the street but he has no political history comparable to Clinton.
And the biggest issue of all: Trump seems to be the best candidate to avoid WW III.
I'm not sure that's true. Trump is a narcissist who wants to be loved. He's not trying to be hated.
What these posts do is create or reinforce cultural and political divide in a very ugly way. The message is that if you're a Trump supporter you're immoral and because you're immoral there's no way to compromise with you. The author may get brownie points from other members in his bubble, but his attitude is destructive and should be stopped. All you're doing is incentivising lying about political beliefs and further radicalizing conservatives.
We're much better off scrutinizing ideas rather than candidates who frequently change their ideas based on who's listening or their chances to get into/hold onto office.
There's this trope that attacking this position doesn't harm (or even helps) Trump, but polling has shown the contrary. The scandals involving his comments about women, about the muslim veteran, his mocking of a reporter with disabilities, have always been followed by drops in polling for him. His tax policies, a bit less so.
Talking about how Trump's positions are terrible cause his numbers to go down. If that's not effective political speech, I don't know what is.
EDIT: Nate Silver made this point better than me in a mini-tweetstorm (tweet-shower?) https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/784777881482170368
That's not something which hurts his candidacy. It convinces his supporters that they're under attack (they literally are), and encourages people to keep silent rather than admit that they like any of what he says. Ignoring him might have worked at 5% in the polls, but at ~50% you need to engage his supporters.
That doesn't mean treating his positions as 'normal', but there's plenty of room between that and firing donors and banning campaign signs.
Thiel is not just a Trump supporter though, he's a major donor. Out there doing fundraising and fullheartedly defending Trump's positions through money. At what point do you have to actually take responsibility for your actions if not after writing a million dollar check? At what point does SV decide that having someone materially supporting a fascist as a major player in the community is not super hot?
Fun side note, there was some polling done that showed that Americans are now extremely unlikely to date someone who supports a different political party.
The highly partisan nature of American politics puts a pretty hard floor on what any major candidate can expect for support. The Democrats or Republicans could run a half-eaten bagel for President and they would still get about 40% of the vote. It's no coincidence that this is about the level where Trump is polling right now.
Sure, posts like this just reinforce Trump supporters' beliefs. But so what? They're going to vote for him anyway. 80% of the electorate knew which way they were going to vote before the primaries even began. Nothing is going to sway them. What matters is convincing the 20% in the middle. They're rejecting Trump pretty hard right now, and pointing out how horrible he is certainly seems to be helping.
That is, suppose you believe (as I do) that D.T. and his supporters are quite dangerous. If they are using my behavior to gain strength, it behooves me to change my behavior!
Daily newspapers have endorsed Clinton by a margin of 147 to 2. It should be obvious, over a year after the Trump campaign started, that anyone voting for Trump isn't going to be dissuaded by yet another article calling him racist. Indeed, I think many Trump supporters back him because of all the articles calling him racist. "They" must be scared of Trump (the logic goes), or else "they" wouldn't spend so much effort attacking him, so Trump must be the only "truly independent" candidate who will "fight the system".
If you don't believe me, look at eg. this comment on /r/The_Donald, which was voted up to #1 on a recent Peter Thiel article:
"True story. I once hung out with a group of lesbians (most my friends are male), and when they found out I didn't agree with them politically, they told me they were taking away my dyke card. Thankfully there are a LOT of gays who give no fucks about the 'lgbtqjseflelkf community', and just live their lives like anyone else. This article is nothing more than typical democrat tactics. 'YOU'RE NOT A REAL <insert minority> UNLESS YOU DO WHAT WE SAY.' REMEMBER IF TRUMP WEREN'T A REAL THREAT, THEY WOULDN'T BE THIS DESPERATE." (emphasis in original)
The same tactics have been used against Trump over and over and over, for more than a year now, and his support is still pretty much where it was during the summer. Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over and over, and expecting different results.