It's very easy to decry literal straw man arguments. As a googler, I don't think I've seen much discussion of drinking straws at all, and certainly none about how they're phallic.

If you think any discussion of politics is that infantile, I don't think there's anything I can do or say to convince you otherwise, but for everyone else, just recognize that this example is ridiculous. And real, actual, conversations about political topics aren't anywhere near as asenine. They're about important things, that often are relevant to work: privacy, discrimination (inentional and non-, by both people and machines), and literal actual government policy that affects google and googlers: immigration, taxes, etc.

I'm not sure how you could avoid those topics and still be an effective employee, or in some cases still be an employee at all.