CEOs are allowed to publicly state their opinion if it is in favor of left leaning positions but not conservative leaning positions.
See also the book Woke Inc.
It's only CEOs who go against the left who actually get fired.
This is not a principle that the people who got this CEO actually live by or genuinely believe in. It's a post-hoc excuse for collecting a scalp from the other side. Let's speak plainly about what's really going on here.
No. CEOs of companies that sell to left-leaning consumers can make left-leaning posts. The same goes for the right. This has always been true.
http://inlandnwreport.com/2021/04/08/here-is-your-boycott-li...
Numerous others
https://www.cancelthiscompany.com/index.html
https://www.cancelthiscompany.com/Company-Reviews/Sonic_Revi...
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/conservatives-call-for-paypal-b...
If you are on the left, it's great.
If you're on the right, you just lost your right to have free speech and stay employed.
It's not just CEOs. An everyday engineer can be fired for publicly repeating political opinions on the right. See Damore. But no one who repeats public opinions on the left gets fired.
Actually you'd probably get fired most places for publishing a company wide memo of any kind with the primary purpose of criticizing your bosses and workplace.
University of California President Clark Kerr: https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-fbis-vendetta-against-...
Nikole Hannah-Jones: https://www.wral.com/faculty-say-hannah-jones-tenure-saga-ta...
James Whitfield: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/02/us/texas-principal-paid-leave...
Strong arguments for: Dan Rather, Sarah Jeong (attempted), Quinn Norton (succeeded), Al Franken, Emily Wilder, Noah Adams, Bob Edwards, Daniel Schorr.
(So many in the press. Interesting.)
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens.
The Hollywood Blacklist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist
Note that business itself tends to be dominated by conservatives, with some exceptions.
Quinn Norton was fired for anti-black, anti-gay, and “Friends with Nazis” comments. If you want to associate this with a political side at all in the USA, then (especially the anti-gay language) it would be right-wing. https://www.wired.com/story/the-ny-times-fires-tech-writer-q...
Al Franken wasn’t fired at all, he resigned from his job as senator after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women.
Continuing along your example list seems pointless since examination of the first few suggests it’s rather a jumble of names. How is such a list of academics, journalists, and a US Senator relative to the parent’s original question of “ When was the last time that a CEO got canceled by right-leaning consumers for making a left-leaning post?” A CEO position seems quite different from the ones you listed.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#...
And not just any fraudulent documents, but ones that had typography that was so anachronistic that amateur bloggers were able to discover and prove their fraudulence.
CBS appointed a panel led by Republican Dick Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and United States Attorney General under George H. W. Bush, and Louis Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer and former executive editor of the Associated Press. Released in January 5, 2005, their report concluded that CBS rushed to make inadequately verified allegations public and it was slow in responding to criticism. The panel, however, was unable to conclude whether the documents were forgeries or not, nor did it conclude that a political agenda at 60 Minutes Wednesday drove either the timing of the airing of the segment or its content. Like the story itself, the report and its conclusions were divisive....
Rather has stood by the story. In a 2007 interview with Larry King, Rather argued that the review panel was “a set-up,” and pointed to the fact that “nobody to this day has proved these documents were fraudulent. . . . The story was true.” The journalist also talked about the story in his 2012 memoir, Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News, and claimed that internal CBS documents that came to light during his lawsuit show how Viacom lobbyist Carol Melton, under pressure from GOP House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, urged Heyward to retract the Bush/TexANG story. In Rather's words, Melton "made it clear that Blunt was speaking for an even more powerful constituency—the White House.” Rather was especially critical of Leslie Moonves, who was then chairman and CEO of CBS, explaining that CBS should not have retracted the story "but that was the way that Blunt and the White House wanted it, and Moonves chose to oblige." His 2012 memoir led a new wave of articles that revisited the 60 Minutes II piece. Most of them, like the extensive Texas Monthly article in 2012, concluded that the story was and remained far more complex than expected.
https://danratherjournalist.org/about-dan/controversies
Note that Rather's "controversies" page shows he has been attacked by conservatives and the GOP since the Nixon administration in 1972. It's also quite candid on the controversies with which he's been involved. I'd be interested in similar personally-hosted pages from other persuasions.
Moreover, the question was "When was the last time that a CEO got canceled" by the right. I think I've demonstrated and documented that that particular practice is in fact very well established.
> Moreover, the question was "When was the last time that a CEO got canceled" by the right. I think I've demonstrated and documented that that particular practice is in fact very well established.
By listing random non-CEOs who were fired or resigned for reasons like sexual harassment or anti-gay comments? I don’t get how you say that establishes anything related to the quoted question.
That's apples and oranges. Conservatives can boycott all they want, but they don't have the same cultural power to get people fired for ideological transgressions like this. I read somewhere that while conservatives have been very effective at achieving and maintaining political power, it turns out that's not a substitute for cultural power, so their strategy ultimately failed.
Ultimately, they can probably blame their allegiance to free market capitalism for that weakness. It seems that, when conservatives actually achieve economic power, making money takes priority over their other ideological commitments.
Conservatives have been quite successful in the past.
Any failure is not for lack of trying.
The hypocrisy is flagrant.
(I am French, we do not care what our CEOs say about non business things as personal beliefs, or with whom they sleep, or which church they attend our not - so this is just a genuine comment on one possibility)
Stop with the nonsense. A CEO was fired. Nobody was cancelled.
> Most companies sell to both left-leaning and right-leaning consumers, but people only seem to get canceled over right-leaning posts.
Elon Musk smoked a single joint and his board did an executive reorg. Most CEOs keep their politics mostly private. What are you even saying?
What would the answer be if you replaced "canceled" with "fired" in my comment then?
> Elon Musk smoked a single joint and his board did an executive reorg.
But isn't he still the CEO?
The same. I wanted to correct the nonsense language. You'll note I used appropriate language in my response.
> But isn't he still the CEO?
If he had been CEO for 6 weeks and did an unremarkable job, he certainly would've been. Given the fact that he made them a boatload of money, obviously they wouldn't fire him. If John Gibson had done anything of value and driven them to record breaking sales, they'd probably have kept him too.
Regardless I fail to see how this refutes the claim that the right also attempts to engage in "canceling" of those they disagree with but is less effective at it.
For specific examples see the backlash to Gilettes 2019 commercial, or the attempted boycott of nike following their release of ads featuring Kaepernick.
https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/03/11/nfl-revenue...
What would you like—for everyone to be forced into buying his company’s products/services? Cancel the right to (not) associate? Cancel free speech, so no one can spread news about his opinion?
Foolish. Everything worked exactly as it is meant to work: freedom of speech and freedom of association, hand in hand.
We need to stop letting this radical religious agenda be whitewashed as conservatism. It's born out of frustration with conservatism, but it is anything but conservative.
That's a specious argument, since at its core you're just picking an arbitrary reference point that gets you the result you want.
Also I don't think that "conservatism," properly understood, is about arbitrarily "conserving" everything.
To me, the core of conservatism involves respecting existing institutions and customs, and wanting change to happen slowly. This has direct bearing on the topic, because it's incorrect to say this CEO had to step down due to having a "conservative" opinion. Rather, business is intrinsically conservative. It's just that our societal values in 2021 involve things that religious fundamentalists do not like, such as women's healthcare and rainbow flags. Big business isn't embracing these symbols so they can be activists pushing change, but rather to ingratiate their businesses with consumers by embracing change that has already happened.
This CEO didn't have to step down because they were against some change or wanted to slow it down, but rather because they were advocating for a change that most people find repulsive. There would be similar pushback for any political opinion that was equally unpopular.
To you, but your definition is 1) mostly theoretical, 2) co-opts a label that applies to a real things that are different, and 3) appears to be a kind of "exo-definition" (e.g. applied from outside).
IMHO, the "conservatism" you define doesn't have any real political life to it in America, and it never has. You might have something closer to real life if your "core" included recovering "institutions and customs" that had value but were lost, but that would still probably be lacking.
> but rather because they were advocating for a change that most people find repulsive.
Honestly, that sounds like a view from a bubble.
He can. He did.
> 39% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all/most cases.
Many people who believe that don’t support the Texas law; the people that oppose abortion actually overlap a lot with the people that think that open floodgates for private civil litigation by parties not directly involved in an issue is a very bad way to enforce even good and necessary laws.
> Should this very large group of people not be employable because of this opinion?
People who can’t restrain their public engagement on controversial issues to positions that the relevant decisionmakers are willing to tie the organization to tend not to be employable in positions where they are perceived as the face of an organization. Having a belief is not the issue.
Public opinion on the left - OK.
Public opinion on the right - You're fired.
Based on his statement, my response is that I do not want to conduct any sort of business with his company. That's not a major hardship to me (I didn't like Killing Floor), and it's not a major hardship to them. However, there are more people who feel like I do, and apparently some of them WORK at Tripwire. If I was in their position, I would have quit. Perhaps the company leadership didn't want that to happen?
In short: who here has misbehaved to your mind? I am not legally required to financially support people who wish harm on me, am I? And let's be clear, people are already being harmed by this law -- this is not a mere disagreement on the finer points of jurisprudence.
It doesn't sound like such a bad idea until it's applied to people/businesses with your beliefs.
The law as written goes far beyond a mainstream political belief. There is no civil reward for turning in or reporting or suing a child rapist, serial rapist, a pedophile, a child abuser or a cannibal or a serial killer, much less someone that assisted them. None of these are legal activities in any state or country.
But you can report someone helping someone else get an abortion and you get a minimum of $10K? That's a full degree of separation from an abortion and is an indirect 'crime'. Is that 'crime' somehow way worse than all the direct heinous crimes that I listed that we have to allow civil litigation? Abortion is legal in large parts of the world. What about women who get unfairly sued? How do you prove you did not have an abortion? Who's going to pay for the lawyers to defend them? Is there a precedent for this apart from autocratic regimes where people are supposed to watch others?
I'm not defending the law, but it seems it's written like that only because the Texas legislature has been prevented from legislating directly to address what they see as a legitimate issue, unlike in the other areas you listed. The law's structure is a kludge to get around that limitation.
You'd probably see similar kludges if the Supreme Court set similar permissive precedents in the areas you listed or areas of polarized moral sentiment (e.g. gay conversion therapy).
1. This is not a mainstream political belief. The law at the root of the current issue in Texas is far beyond the mainstream. The intention at some level is to shift the Overton window of what is mainstream in its favor, but that has not occurred yet.
2. It's not my responsibility to educate this guy to my point of view. I don't know him and I don't work with him. Actually the only thing I know about him is that he doesn't respect the rights of others that I feel are important, so I'm doubly disinclined to make his acquaintance. I would presume that some amount of discourse did occur within Tripwire, but I don't think we know.
3. I'm allowed to vote with my dollars. It doesn't have to be a glorious public crusade, and it may not make the slightest bit of difference. In this case, it certainly won't. But those dollars work for me, and I can choose to deploy them so as not to (tacitly or actively) support people or business who wish to harm myself and people who I identify with. That's what I have chosen to do, and others should make their own choices.
4. In a different scenario, I might indeed feel differently. I don't find that the slippery slope is a solid argument for why I can't take (lawful) action to preserve my values though.
Women have the right to terminate the potential life of a child, on the principle that it's their body so their choice.
Men have no opt-out to 18 years of child support even if the child was conceived due to deception, etc. Somehow the 18 years of work, and the effects of that work on their body, do not count under the principle of their body, their choice.
I would say there is already not gender equality on this issue. The principle that is the foundation of abortion rights (in other states than Texas anyway) is not being applied consistently.
I don’t think you’ll find many pro-choice people that disagree with you on that. But that unfairness doesn’t make it right to force a person to go through 9 months of pregnancy and labor.
What solution do you propose for the situation you cited?
Yes, in your (and my) opinion. And in his opinion, it's a necessary measure to protect innocent life. That makes him (probably) wrong, not evil.
Based on his statement, my response is that I do not want to conduct any sort of business with his company.
You are free to make those sorts of decisions, but it's an impractical way to go through life and it leads to the increased polarization of society. It's very likely that you have some political, moral, and/or religious views that your employers or customers would find deeply wrong and harmful. Should they cease doing business with you on that basis?
I don't believe that "voting with my wallet" is impractical. Taken to extremes, it does indeed cause polarization but I also think that it can cause real change in the world -- because it's capitalism, you know? Certainly the cost to me depends on how far I take it, but as I said in this case the hardship is minimal.
As a general rule, I don't make my personal views known at work or on social media. This comment thread is maybe the only time I have ever blurred that line. If someone were to find it and disagree so vehemently, then I suppose they are entitled to take the (legal) course of action they deem fit. I stand behind my words.
How did we get here? Someone expresses an opinion about stopping the killing of human beings is now labelled "evil".
If I get a girl pregnant, what equality is there in choosing to abort? None. I have no say. My only choice is pay support if she keeps it or go to jail.
The above being said, banning abortion doesn’t improve equality over the current situation.
Folk like this are precisely how Mozilla ended up replacing Eich with a parasitic CEO who immediately proceeded to destroy the business. Society's strength lies in managing and celebrating differences, not myopic, totalitarian uniformity. Folk like this are far worse for society than any temporary (and likely unenforceable) regulation, in one conservative region of an increasingly backwater nation trapped in what appears to be a permanent state of civil decay.
Public figures can and regularly do get shit canned for what they say. That's an integral part of the job.
I love eating meat, I don't see it as murder but I would never agree to cancel someone because he decides to speak out his mind that meat is murder.
There are relatively few vegetarians and vegans, so they aren't a real threat. I doubt you know what you would do if the number of vegetarians and vegans in your country were the same as the number of anti-abortion theocrats and the former were actively pursuing a long-term goal of establishing legally that all animals have personhood.
He did.
So did other people, so everyone’s rights were well-maintained. They also made purchasing decisions. Would you deny them the right to choose a different service provider?
Is there some social more I missed that says forcing 13 year old rape victims to carry children to term is acceptable behavior but not buy videogames from the shitheads who support this policy crosses a line?
Why should I support people who are trying to push their religious beliefs on me? Why should I support people who want to regulate what others can do with their own body?
But imagine you enter a Twilight Zone episode, and are transferred back to the 1920s.
You publicly state your opinion that abortions should be legal, and then you lose your job because of it.
How would that feel to you?
Even though I think a woman's rights are the most important, I understand that there are lots of people from 1920, or even today who think the unborn baby's rights are the most important.
In fact from their point of view, they think people who support abortion are baby killers. That's not right. You and me aren't baby killers. We want to help women. That's all.
I don't think people with this other opinion are monsters. They're people. Like you and me. Just people with other opinions. They just want to help unborn babies. That's all.
According to Governor Abbott, this won't be a problem because "Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets" [1].
[1] https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/gov-abbott-abortion-bill-won...
I'd assume that many of them would be uncomfortable with the Texas law on a rule of law basis; it's divisive on two axes. Even many of those who approve of the ends would be very uncomfortable with the means.
It strikes me that this offers a way out of the abortion conundrum, those who oppose abortion can offer their bodies as hosts for the precious foetus, women who do not wish to get their way too.
This could also involve men opposed to abortion; they would need to be castrated and have large oestrogen injections to create the right chemical environment, but a small price to pay, surely.
You can't air opinions like this unless you're happy to only work with and sell to people who think the same.
You are not free to speak from consequences from other people.
Everyone else is free to decide that they think you're an asshole that they don't want to work for.
That is what actual FREEDOM looks like.
People love to advocate for "freedom" when it agrees with their interests, and advocate for "accepting the consequences of your actions" when they disagree with something. Actual apolitical freedom means having a single standard to apply.
He can, and did, voice his opinion on social media. He was not prevented from doing so in any way. Other people read his opinion and decided they didn't want to work with him anymore. Also their right.
Because enough customers and partners decided they didn't want to work with him anymore, he felt like the only way to save his business was to step down.
> Should this very large group of people not be employable because of this opinion
It's not just an opinion, but legislation that puts millions of women at risk. If you support things that are harmful to women, I don't see why I'd employ you. :shrug:
For what it's worth, this is what conservatives have been pushing for decades, the ability to discriminate based on skin color, sexual orientation, and political beliefs. I am all for giving them their wishes on this one.