I would not hire a Trump supporter for any position that requires studying facts and making a judgment. They are ipso facto unqualified. A responsible conservative, someone like Ross Douthat, would be perfectly acceptable.
Do you also believe every Bill Clinton voter would cheat on their spouse?
They don’t need a skeleton in their closet. They’re all right with keeping children in cages. People who voted for George W. Bush were wrong. People who voted for Donald Trump are evil. People can be forgiven for being wrong, but not for being evil.
I just got off the phone with a Trump supporter who was inviting me to his Christmas party.
I said, “No Dad, there’s a pandemic on. If you want, I can visit briefly later, but I’m not coming over when you have all the grandkids and everyone else there.”
I’m sure that the Trump supports you know are nice to you. I’m sure that they are even “upright” whatever that means.
But if they voted for Trump, they either believe in hating and wanting to hurt the other half of the country including minorities, immigrants, and anyone else that is not part of “them”, or they tolerate that hate because it is an acceptable cost of getting what they want.
In any case, once again, you did not read the OP very well, as it is not asking about skeletons in a closet, but skeletons on display on their public social media.
Do you think that cheating on a spouse is something that should be considered an issue between the members of a marriage? Is anyone affected by that other than those directly involved?
This is a poor equivalence that you have tried to make here, mighty poor. Like, exceptionally poor. Unbelievably poor, in fact. I have a hard time believing that you even would extend it seriously.
ETA: I don’t think I was wooshed with a Poe’s law issue here, if so, apologies, as that’s hilarious if you did.
Depends. Are they aware of Trump’s actual actions? Are they at least aware of the coup attempt? Or his lying about masks and thus responsibility for 100,000s of innocent American deaths?
Then, yes. They are bad people. All of that goodness you describe has been for show–a facade. If they believed that the stuff Trump is doing is wrong, they couldn’t support him. They have secretly thought that at least some things that are genuinely horrible are in fact acceptable. And thus there is no reason to believe they wouldn’t engage in it themselves if they thought they could get away with it.
That’s just how morality works. You don’t meet someone who thinks murder is a sin but then throws support towards the guy who murders people.
I actually think that not looking at Trump support, antimask support, and so on is just making the world a much worse place. People are learning that evil actions don’t have consequences in this life, and they clearly do not care about the next.
I’ve seen the pro-Trump memes on Facebook from former friends–all of which seem to support something immoral. I’ve seen the people posting laughter in response to the 300,000 Americans dead because of COVID-19. It is delusional to believe these are good people at heart, even if they try to pretend to be good people.
This is the whole reason why people like me are so upset. We had actually convinced ourselves these were good people. But they revealed the evil in their heart.
There are some people I’ve seen who just seem entirely ignorant of what Trump has done, refusing to believe he could be that bad and also supported by (other) Christians. I could see hiring them for a job where they wouldn’t have to make many decisions that require critical thinking. And I can be friends with them–I just won’t expect much intellectual conversation.
But those who know and don’t care or actively support him? They put a window in their skeleton closet that lets you glimpse what is within. They’ve shown you their true selves.
It is foolish to willfully ignore that.
(Completely unrelated aside: what is with Chrome thinking pure English words spelled without their entirely optional diacritics are misspelled? Where are they getting such a bad spelling dictionary? Native speakers don’t need the pronunciation help. It’s like demanding that Hebrew speakers include vowel markings.)
nm…
As was mentioned in the related thread, close to half of voters chose Trump, for a variety of reasons.
If you eliminate all of them from your hiring pool, you’re likely screening out some excellent candidates, who should be capable of keeping their politics to themselves.
If on the other hand you find that a potential hire is prone to loony rants dehumanizing large numbers of people on Facebook or Twitter, crossing that person off your list is probably a good idea.
If they keep it to themselves, it won’t be present on social media, though.
Plus, as I keep pointing out: Trump voter ≠ Trump supporter.
(You can type ≠ by typing ≠.)
I support Trump largely because I like the judges that he’s appointed. Please explain, clearly and concisely, why you think that I’m likely to commit fraud–or, for that matter, approve of it in other people.
I wouldn’t consider supporting Trump to be a deal breaker in a job interview. But I would consider some of the reasons why a person might support Trump to be good reasons not to hire somebody.
eh, a 2016 Trump voter isn’t necessarily a Trump supporter.
I can’t give the same exception for a 2020 Trump voter.
You are willing to accept fraud, corruption, 300,000 dead, loss of standing in the world, loss of any sort of moral authority in the world, separating parents from their children specifically to dissuade them and others from fleeing violence and seeking asylum with us, assaulting peaceful demonstrators for photo ops, validating white supremacist and a whole list of other rather condemnable and stupid acts… because he appoints the judges that the Heritage Foundation tells him to appoint.
You certainly do approve fraud in other people, in those you choose to support. If you approve of others committing fraud in order to achieve your desires, then it is hard to demonstrate why you would not commit it yourself if it gets you what you want.
I wouldn’t ask, but if they tell me, then that’s certainly not someone that I would want.
I don’t know that you’re likely to commit fraud. But you do implicitly “approve of it in other people” since you voted for a congenital liar who is one of the most egregious fraudsters and con-men of all time. Of the three SCOTUS appointees, one is very likely a would-be rapist and the other two are religious nutters who have already demonstrated that they put religious nuttery well ahead of public safety. Is that clear and concise enough for you?
If not, follow along as the unhinged lunacy continues:
The second post that I’ve ever encountered of yours in the other thread makes a dishonest claim about the Hippocratic Oath. So there’s that.
Are you saying the ends (judges you like) justify the means (everything about Trump and his misdeeds) ?
Those of you who believe all Trump supporters are evil: where do y’all live? Because in my little corner of the deep South, there are all sorts of people who voted for Trump for all sorts of reasons, many of which I personally believe to be dumb or misguided, and some of which undoubtedly reflect unconscious bigotry on the part of the voter, but the vast majority of these people are not evil. Many of them voted for Trump because the people they respect and trust were also voting for Trump, and they assumed that these people were right and that negative media stories about him were biased or exaggerated. Or because they sincerely believe that abortion is murder and also sincerely believe that voting for Republicans will somehow bring about the end of abortion. (I happen to believe that they are wrong on both counts, but these are not evil beliefs.) Or because they have a vague and squishy idea that Republicans are the pro-Christian party and that Christianity is good. (These are mostly people who haven’t thought very deeply about what it actually means to be a Christian, or how people of other faiths might feel about this rationale, or why the black people they know, most of whom also identify as Christian, do not vote for Republicans. But being shallow and incurious isn’t evil. Even being biased toward members of one’s in-group isn’t really evil, although it is a moral failing.)
And, to get back to the OP, I think it’s ethical if the person’s support for Trump interferes with their ability to do their job: if there are strong indications that they won’t be able to keep their political views to themselves when dealing with customers, or if the job is in a field where politics are actually relevant, like they’re working for an environmentalist group or something. Otherwise, I think employees’ political views are their own business; I certainly would not want to be judged on mine if I lost my job and, for some reason, absolutely had to stay in the town where I currently live.
Because it means you are willing to overlook the fraud he’s committed to get those judges. If one will do that for the president, why wouldn’t they do that for themselves? People are more prone to make excuses for their own bad behavior.
It’s not like the choice is supporting Trump or not getting those judges. Trump chose from a list compiled by the party. Any other Republican would have made those choices. In fact, we’ve had at least one Doper who admitted they liked Trump’s judge choices without supporting Trump himself.
Supporting his judge choices is no reason you have to support Trump himself. There’s no reason someone who supports more textualist justices has to support overthrow democracy–in fact, the two are antithetical.
And, no, one cannot ignore that last part. It is not some insignificant part of Trump’s presidency. He has gone out of his way to try to avoid a smooth transition of power, and has made arguments that the election results should be overthrown in several states.
He ironically was stopped by many of those judges he appointed. Hence how you can support those judges but not support Trump.
You must never say it, but you must always think it.
I would never hire a Trump supporter.
He’s been my family’s accountant for over 25 years, so there’s a bit of a track record.
My accountant approves of Trump largely because Trump and Pence (appear to be) pro-Israel and by extension pro-Jewish (although I have a lot of doubts about that myself). Once they moved the US embassy to Jerusalem it was rah-rah Trump. So it’s all centered around a very narrow focus, which is probably not typical of most of Trump’s followers. With certain Palestinian-descent and/or Muslim politicians being Democrats this guy feels that he has no choice but to back the Republicans.
Personally, I don’t think Trump or Pence are friends of the Jewish people, Pence even less than Trump, but I don’t feel like derailing this thread with a long essay on why I think that.
I’ll also point out that the accountant is pro-vaccination, pro-science, and doesn’t spout nonsense about the election being stolen. He’s not happy about the election results, but he doesn’t deny them. So he may not be described as “Trump base” but is a supporter.
I think there are multiple reasons a person might support Trump/Pence. While I do not agree with any of them, I do try to understand other viewpoints.