I think you’re losing me.
I don’t see people saying that Trump’s die-hard supporters are pedophiles and axe murderers.
I see their analysis, insight, judgment, and temperament being held up for scrutiny.
And for cause.
I’m totally cool with you, as a hiring manager or whatever, not hiring people who are publicly advocating the assassination of political figures. Or murdering anyone, for that matter.
Huh? Are you suggesting that the only or primary reason for employers being unenthusiastic about hiring Trump supporters is fear of outright illegal violence or dangerous gross incompetence?
Because I don’t think that’s the reasoning here at all. If the most salient risk a Trump supporter poses is instead a general tendency toward bigotry, excessive credulity, poor judgement, low information about scientific and policy issues, and other things similarly likely to cause long-term headaches for an employer, then obviously it would be a safer bet to have a Trump supporter doing some skilled manual labor as a contractor in your home for a couple of weeks than to have a Trump supporter representing your company as a responsible employee for an indefinite period of time.
And presumably you are also totally cool with hiring managers not hiring people who have raised some serious red flags about their capacity for analysis, insight, judgment, and temperament in job openings where those qualities are important to successful performance?
Because that’s all the debate I’m seeing here. Nobody’s asking “Is it ethical to refuse to hire somebody who doesn’t totally agree with every one of my political opinions?” What they’re asking is “Is it ethical to refuse to hire somebody whose demonstrated political extremism seriously calls into question their rationality and critical thinking ability?”
No, of course not. Please don’t put words in my mouth.
But the things you mention (“bigotry, excessive credulity, poor judgement, low information about scientific and policy issues”) aren’t necessarily things I want my children exposed to, either.
But I’ve found that most people, even Trump supporters, know when it’s appropriate to trot out their demented views and when it’s not. A Trump rally? Sure. My home, when my cousin Angelo (not is real name, but close enough) is hanging out here? Not so much. Me and Angelo, hanging out, having a few, arguing about stuff? Sure.
I guess it comes down to me being willing to give Trumpists more credit than most people in this thread would give them.
No, of course I’m not cool with that.
Where I’m disagreeing with you, and others in this thread (I would think obviously, but apparently not) is what constitutes a red flag.
That’s a perfectly reasonable justification for hiring your Trump-supporting cousin Angelo for a short-term skilled-manual-labor job replacing a couple of floors in your home during the workday. And I don’t see anybody in this thread arguing that it isn’t.
But that’s not the sort of hiring decision that this thread is primarily about, ISTM.
? Do we perhaps have a semantic crossed wire here? You mean to say that you are cool with a manager not hiring an applicant who’s raised some serious red flags, right?
Speaking of semantic crossed wires, of course that should be “your Trump-supporting contractor”, not “your Trump-supporting cousin Angelo”, sorry.
You know, I remember posting ages ago in some totally unrelated thread about how much I hate that debating technique – :“so what you’re really saying is…” or “so you agree with me that…”
Anyway, yes, of course there are red flags when it comes to hiring, and responsible managers should take them into consideration. Someone else brought up the example of someone advocating the assassination of a governor. That’s a good one.
Apparently, though, we disagree on what constitutes a “red flag.” I don’t think that being a Trump supporter (and yes, people in this thread have said that that’s enough to be a red flag), or even thinking that Joe Biden somehow stole the election, is necessarily a red flag for most jobs.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to have a meeting of the minds here.
It was a query about what I think was an accidental misreading on your part. To recap:
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You said to DavidNRockies in post #202 that you’re cool with managers not hiring murderers or assassination advocates.
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I asked you in post #204 whether you are likewise cool with managers not hiring applicants who raise serious red flags.
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You answered in post #206 “of course I’m not cool with that”.
But the content of your post, and your subsequent post #209, seems to suggest that in fact you are cool with that; it’s simply, as you note, a matter of how one defines a “red flag”.
So I think you just inadvertently missed or added a “not” in there somewhere.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other, in this case.
You realize people vote for or against a candidate for a variety of reasons? Your projected reasons might have literally 0 to do with their reasons. You talk about correlation with rationality. Why should the religious and superstitious get a pass on irrationality? Shouldn’t we be able to discriminate based on the lack of scientific belief with regards to likelihood of veracity of miracles and such? What about those who dispute science with regards to humans? Should they be excluded from work?
You’re still allowed to hire them, if you want. It’s a long thread, is someone arguing that hiring flat earthers or snake handlers is a good idea?
No hypocrisy. “Protected classes” tend to cover what people are - categories like gender, race, sexual orientation, religion (I know we can quibble about religion but let’s not) and so forth. I would have no problem with political affiliation being a protected class - being registered as a Republican or Democrat or other shouldn’t be cause for discrimination - and I speak as someone who has been registered as each of those at various times. (I also happen to believe in the importance of the right to a secret ballot - employers should not be able to ask who candidates and employees voted for.)
But discrimination based on what people do and say? That’s entirely sensible, to the extent what they do and say impacts either on you or on the person’s likely ability to do their job. So while being a Republican or merely voting for Trump shouldn’t be grounds for discrimination, spouting unfounded conspiracy theories or generally ignoring basic reality and science are legitimate concerns.
(That said, I used to work with a guy who compartmentalized like crazy - he was one of the most rigorous auditors I’ve ever met, and made sure that every bit of evidence was supported and documented, yet in his personal beliefs he also was a Truther who believed the moon landings were faked and that alien abduction was real. So people can surprise you.)
How do you feel about the long-used right-wing mantra that anyone who disagrees with them in any way should simply leave the country?
If anyone was still wondering why polls undercounted support for Trump, this thread should clear it up.
You’re thinking of negligent hiring. i.e. That you should have known something about your employee’s past before hiring them and exposing them to danger. The classic example is you hire a person who then assaults an employee and find out that a simple background check would have revealed a conviction for assault prior to employment. In Arkansas, negligent hiring " rests upon proof that the employer knew or, through the exercise of ordinary care, should have known, that the employee’s conduct would subject third parties to an unreasonable risk of harm."
Checking social media is not the ordinary practice in HR. In fact, checking Facebook and other forms of social media is a somewhat divisive subject in HR partly for fear of discriminating against candidates. Though there are some companies that hire a third party to comb through a candidate’s social media presence to see if they can find anything off putting.
Well, I have a strong opinion about that since I was raped by a coworker. I’ve also been involved in corporate legal while we’ve fought off hostile environment lawsuits on race (and lost, and paid out big time). So my standard of ordinary care that I practice and expect is somewhat higher. “Making salacious comments to coworkers is ok” or “I believe black people are more stupid than white people” is unlikely to come out on a background check - both are likely to cause the corporation and other employees harm.
Yes, I know its a divisive subject.
See my post #192, where I said:
As Gyrate notes, you need to take that up with the rabid right-wingers who really are demanding “conformity and ideological purity”, to the extent of labeling any facts they don’t want to hear about “fake news”, and thinking that they’re the only Americans whose votes and opinions deserve to be respected.
What we liberals are taking a stand for is just basic respect for facts and critical thinking in the public sphere. Your personal religious beliefs about supernatural entities are none of our business, as long as you acknowledge the right to freedom of religion and don’t try to use your beliefs to claim that you are above being bound by secular law.
But your right to your own personal beliefs doesn’t extend to demanding respect and deference for your own personal distortions of facts. Nor does it give you a right to endorse anti-factual delusions and bigotry with perfect freedom from any consequences.
I get why conservatives/Republicans are trying both to normalize outright delusionism and bigotry as mere political “difference of opinion”, and to pathologize pushback against outright delusionism and bigotry as an alarming “irrational demand for conformity and ideological purity”. After all, discrediting outright delusionism and bigotry is politically damaging for conservatives/Republicans in the present political moment. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us should fall for their pro-delusionism-and-bigotry propaganda.
If what you’re trying to suggest is that Trump supporters were “shy” with pollsters because they were afraid of having to face negative social consequences for their political opinions, that seems to be an incorrect inference:
So no, if polls undercounted Trump voters equally in pro-Trump and anti-Trump communities, that indicates that the undercounting was not due to Trump voters’ fear of being socially penalized for their views.
And I repeat: Denouncing malicious lies, incompetence, corruption, reality denial, delusion and bigotry does not constitute unfair political persecution or “intolerance” of the partisans who support malicious lying incompetent corrupt reality-denying delusional bigots.
Public discourse in a functioning democracy requires reasonable standards of factuality, transparency, honesty, fairness and critical thinking. We can’t just throw out those standards because we’re worried about hurting the feelings of supporters of Trumpism and other ideologies of malicious lies, incompetence, corruption, reality denial, delusion and bigotry.
Since you keep bringing it up … yes, if a prospective hire at my fictional business had a Facebook feed full of angels, scorched-earth biblical quotes and Rapture-preparation tips, I’d probably move them to the reject pile, too.