Rifts Break Open at Facebook Over Kavanaugh Hearing
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
This is about as far removed as I can possibly take myself from casting value judgement in one direction or another wrt Kavanaugh and the allegations against him but there's something weird in the air when one can't even be seen in the same vicinity as someone accused of {thing_goes_here} without someome somewhere connecting all sorts of dots that have no business being connected and being one reflexive twitch away from having their character assassinated in the worst possible ways.
Maybe I'm being too nuanced and applying too much of the human element by looking at it like so but it's that very gap between supporting Kabanaugh the nominee who lost his temper in a SJC hearing and supporting Kavanaugh his friend accused of sexual assault and the focus of a Senate confirmation and FBI investigation that makes me take the position I have here.
If anything stricter standards should be applied to upper management than to the rank-and-file, because part of the job is absolutely to be publically representing facebook, so it's really unsurprising that people are perceiving it as such. Keeping your nose clean is part of why they pay you the big bucks.
Kaplan is free to go to this as a private citizen, people are free to be shocked by it, and Facebook is free to do something about it if the negative attention becomes a liability. That's how things work.
Unlike the McJob worker, if they do want to get rid of him, he'll have a nice golden parachute, I'm sure.
Especially when that person has the job title of "VP of Global Public Policy", at-will or right-to-work laws be damned.
Edit: And no. This isn't me saying that's what should happen or even trying to publicly litigate whether or not such a person would win or should win. Just that that behavior sounds like something that would immediately get an employee sued and I'd really be interested to hear the legal arguments from both sides and the opinion of the court.
Being honest here, there is no direct connection to Facebook's interests. This is not a court case in which Facebook has some stake, at best they would just be there to "show the colors".
Either way you take it, someone is supporting Kav here. It's either Kaplan personally, or Facebook professionally.
(and again, I am also not commenting here about whether he should be confirmed or not, but let's not pretend that everybody just showed up for a free 8oz bottle of water. Whether Kaplan's interest is personal or official, there is an interest.)
This isn't a remarkably difficult exercise of mental plurality. Nor is it one of partisan critique.
If someone attends a government function as a private citizen and is fired for it, I think that would make for an interesting set of legal questions with regards to employment law.
If someone were fired for doing the same even in an official capacity, that-to me-would be even more interesting. Since you brought up strict standards for certain levels of employees, I responded to that. You can't very logically say my response to this is trying to have it both ways if all I've done is respond to your talking points.
That's all there is to that, imo. Don't read between the lines here because there's really nothing there to read; I am positing that one really doesn't need to connect many dots for Kaplan's attendance at these hearings, but I can entertain the idea you presented: that being fired for attending a government function would make for interesting legal theater as an impartial and dispassionate onlooker.
I don't think that is the problem at all. Its not that people want to be shielded from dissenting viewpoints, its that the vast majority of people on the right and the left are basically entirely politically disenfranchised, while people like Zuckerberg or Kaplan hold a vastly inordinate amount of power through their connections and their money. What we are seeing here isn't "lefty people crushing dissent", it is "people organizing around and exercising one of the only viable channels of political influence that they have (challenging the means of production of their billionaire boss) in order to exert a tiny amount of political power".
Yes this happens, but should it be the case? Is this something you morally support? Should people be fired for smoking weed in their personal time? Posting on social media? Making a joke to a friend? Donating a political campaign?
People have been fired for these things but I don't think it should be lauded. I don't think its healthy for companies to monitor their employee's personal life, so they can punish them at work.
Why not just advocate for the the corporate world to be more accepting of personal life choices? Firing Kaplan doesn't get you any closer to that.
I agree that when all else is equal, we shouldn't do bad things to one person just because they happened to someone else. All else is not equal here. Given the power Facebook has over their employees lives and in politics in general, they are like a feudal lord. When they stop enforcing the rules on just them and their friends, that's a breakdown of the rule of law which leads to a breakdown of social harmony and leads to people starting to rebel against leadership like you see here with Facebook's employees
In California, you cannot he fired for political activity. Not saying that his act was political activity, but if he is fired for it, it would be because it’s being viewed as a political activity.
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-...
1. I resigned without negotiating a constructive separation.
2. I resigned but with a constructive separation leveraged by legal and other (e.g., public relations) risks inherent in (1) and (3), but about which I cannot talk.
3. I was fired under color of resignation, but I for some reason did not pursue legal action under CA Labor Law (1101,1102).
Hope this helps! Probably not, but it should put a stake through any false dilemma (binary exclusive/exhaustive choice).
To respond to the content of your post, while your list does cover the legal aspect, it doesn't address the broader topic of whether or not someone can be effectively fired for political activity (though I do appreciate that you in particular might not be legally permitted to address that topic given the current context). Unfortunately, when it comes to contentious topics the appearance at least is that people can often be forced out in one way or another regardless of what the law might say.
Regarding your item 3, and in relation to the broader topic of this thread, in the general case (not you specifically) it would not surprise me at all if someone failed to pursue legal action after being fired (or effectively fired) for political activity. Reasons that immediately come to mind include:
1. Legal action is generally quite expensive in this country.
2. Cases involving intent (hiring, firing, racism, sexism, etc) are notoriously difficult.
3. If the political view is even remotely unpopular, the risk of being run through the media may be unacceptable. Consider not just the general aversion most people have to public exposure, but also the impact on future job searches and other similar things.
As a practical example of your average person not wanting to deal with public exposure and controversy, consider the proportion of people who post to this very website under pseudonyms (myself included). Even if you only tally those who keep their posts professional 100% of the time, it's still most of them.
1. Contingency fee basis is common.
2. CA 1101&1102 protect employees from political firing and coercion. Many are unaware of state law variation here. Check them out: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
Good point on pseudonyms. The Federalist Papers are a famous example of practical pseudonymity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers#Author...
That being said, my point 2 was that regardless of the strength of protections provided you still have to demonstrate intent (or for CA 1101 "tendency" I suppose) in court. No idea how high that bar is in CA, but regardless, depending on circumstances that really could be very challenging.
I do have to wonder how employers are going to reconcile this with our increasingly connected, reactionary, and polarized culture going forward. Use of social media alone presumably qualifies as "engaging or participating in politics" at this point, so what happens if, for example, a CA employee starts publicly shitposting about a political topic, someone figures out where they work, and things escalate? Your case and Mr. Kaplan's would seem to be only the tip of the iceberg...
Contingency fee plus colorable claim often means settlement way before hearing or trial, with non-disclosure clause to keep secrets after. Hard to know how often this happens. Businesses generally strive to de-escalate whenever possible.
To make this claim valid, that this is a public show of support a multiple of stars would have to align here:
Joel Kaplan must have thought that he's famous enough that people will recognize him in public, better yet the third row of that testimony AND know that he's not a bystander or supporter of the alleged victims, but of the accused. And that he wanted to antagonize half of FB's staff about it.
Because Kaplan and Kavanaugh according to the article are personal friends.
I think to willfully ignore this is exactly what I mean by connecting dots that have no business being connected.
Maybe I shouldn't be so eager to invoke Occam's Razor here but I am.
At last Friday’s staff meeting, Mr. Zuckerberg defended Mr. Kaplan’s appearance as a personal decision that did not violate company rules. Mr. Zuckerberg also said he trusted Mr. Kaplan’s judgment, even though he himself would most likely not have chosen to attend the hearing, said two people who were at the meeting.
The messaging backfired. Some employees — particularly women — said it came across as if Mr. Zuckerberg was shrugging off Dr. Blasey’s comments about sexual assault, saying that the chief executive’s remarks had caused “stress and trauma” and were “painful to hear.”
If you have a policy that people can have their own beliefs and opinions, you need to hold to it regardless of whether you like how it's used. It's like free speech (is is free speech), and I suspect all these same people would also be very upset if someone faced repercussions from management for supporting or appearing with a person or cause very strongly associated with liberalism. And they would be right to be upset in that case. But you can't have it both ways.
Freedom of speech is one of our most important rights, and if you find yourself at odds with it, you should really examine if your feelings are just. They might be, but in my opinion, the cases where that's true are fairly rare.
Besides, it matters how this turns out. Supporting an innocent man wrongly accused and supporting someone who turns out to be a rapist are two different things.
But they aren't, they are also complaining about the CEO standing up for Kaplan's right to espouse his views, or in this case stand by a friend. Just standing by the principle of free speech, which is very clearly what's being asserted by Zuckerberg here, is what's causing problems in the specific portion I quoted.
> Supporting an innocent man wrongly accused and supporting someone who turns out to be a rapist are two different things.
If you know the person who ends up being found out as a rapist, and beforehand you believe them, then no, there's no difference. I will not condemn anyone that stands by their beliefs if they are founded on evidence (even if it's personal knowledge of someone's character over a couple decades) and based on just principles.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying anyone's first amendment right was infringed, I'm saying that a company espousing similar rights for its employees with regard to employment is usually a laudable thing, and coming out against that should make one think carefully.
IMO, this hoo-haa has nothing to do with free speech. The employees of facebook aren't saying that the Kaplan should have his speech be restricted by the government (what the 1st amendment actually protects), they are saying that they aren't comfortable working for a company where someone in his position holds these views and they are exerting their collective power to carry out their will. People like Zuckerberg and Kaplan have orders of magnitude more political power in clubby Washington connections and cold hard cash than any individual facebook employee. Facebook employees pooling their power should be something we encourage, not something we chill through evasive complaints about "restricting free speech".
It has to do with the concept of freedom of speech, not the first amendment right itself. They are often used interchangeably, and the right is often confused as applying to non-governmental entities doing the infringement. I am doing neither of those, as clarified previously.
> they are saying that they aren't comfortable working for a company where someone in his position holds these views and they are exerting their collective power to carry out their will.
Those views being believe in someone's denial based on their personal experience with that person over decades, in the absence of any other concrete evidence? To be clear, by their own descriptions they are unhappy with him sitting next to someone accused as they presented their side.
> Facebook employees pooling their power should be something we encourage, not something we chill through evasive complaints about "restricting free speech".
We should encourage people pooling their power against those in power when that pooled power is used responsibly. If they wanted to pool their power to enforce a racist or sexist agenda, that would be problematic. But since it's just to punish someone for standing by their friend as they defend themselves, that's okay?
Kaplan's actions should be judged based on his beliefs and whether they are justifiable and just given the evidence present to him (as best we can understand it) and whether his actions are in line with those beliefs.
The personal is political, especially when the person is going to recieve a lifetime appointment to a position of huge political power. Especially when there is a widespread suspicion that he will overturn Roe v Wade.
There's also the consideration as a senior manager in Amazon: by standing behind the person accused of harassment, he's saying to his staff "if you accuse someone of harassment, I will have their back rather than yours".
Only if you make it so. I mean, we're talking about employees putting the blame on their CEO because he supports another employees right to sit next to someone they know who is accused of a crime.
I think if when people are going after someone two steps removed who is standing up for one of the major ideals of freedom, then perhaps those people reexamine their own actions and motivations closely.
> by standing behind the person accused of harassment, he's saying to his staff "if you accuse someone of harassment, I will have their back rather than yours".
No, that's definitely not being said, as clearly outlined by him through his statement that he is doing this in support of someone that is his good friend, that he believes.
That some employees cannot seem to separate someone's actions in their private life from their professional life is unfortunate. People seem too willing to condemn behavior that they would support given a few different details. Being upset does not justify a position. In fact, I would say people being upset and using that to justify their actions and beliefs is likely what put us on this path two years ago, and that both sides are willing to do it doesn't make it better, not at all.
Mobbing.
It's not just Facebook, either. I got tired of getting a sick feeling every time I woke up to see my employer in another controversy, which is a large part of the reason I'm an indie game developer now.
Maybe it’s just a reflection of how partisanship infects everything, but...it still infects everything, so not sure that pretending otherwise is intellectually honest.
That doesn’t mean we can’t treat each other with respect or consider other viewpoints, of course.
I do know one's dietary preferences, though, but I'm OK with that.
We don't even talk sports, which is awesome for me personally.
In the vast majority of cases, people's beliefs about what happened just so happens to align with what they want the outcome to be.
But what I find really, extremely sad, is that the majority of the discussion was on this silly inconsequential topic (inconsequential because it's not like there can be any proof of what happened 35 years ago, so it's never getting resolved one way or the other), instead of on his actual leanings, policy, politics, opinions, etc - what kind of Justice he'll be. That's also why I wrote "(very slightly)" above - I'd prefer the court to be as balanced as possible, and K seems to lean right, but I've such low confidence in this belief (e.g. his actual stances could be "libertarian", like Kennedy's, which is IMO preferable while being neither left nor right) that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
His friend stated he called him up to coach him what to say about the rape accusations, at a date supposedly before he ever learned about the accusation (per his sworn testimony before congress). i.e. Kav was fully aware that an accusation was going to come out (because it is likely true).
Apart from that, there's his hilariously transparent lies about his drinking and antics in the greek life. Everyone who's known him says he was the absolute model of a drunk frat party boy, hell his friend Mark Judge published a book about it. And yes, drunk college antics are not a huge deal (as long as he didn't rape anybody), but lying to congress's faces is perjury regardless.
This isn't a courtroom and we don't have to reach an ironclad verdict on the rape beyond a reasonable doubt. We should not appoint a perjurer who is trying to coach his witnesses to a lifetime appointment in a powerful political seat.
You just watched a federal judge commit several baldfaced lies and rant about political hits. That's not acceptable conduct for the supreme court, full stop.
Do you expect the guy to be some sort of emotionless robot? This is classic Alisnky tactics combined with some form of infinite projected purity spiraling to raise the standard for an SC judge to inhuman levels. Thankfully, the right has finally come around to not caring about these tactics being employed by the left.
This is a job-for-life. We can do better. Hell the guy who interviewed before (Garland) wasn't that bad.
There's impeachment, but the only case of that I'm aware of for a supreme court justice is from the 19th century.
If you think that there's no evidence supporting the accusations, though, you might suspect that they're manufactured political outrage. (You might even see a pattern with Bork and Clarence Thomas.) You start to wonder if it's possible to find someone for whom the other side won't manufacture outrage. At that point, trying to find someone "less controversial" is a fool's errand.
If I recall correctly, the bar used to be 60% for approval, by gentleman's agreement. A few years ago, the Democrats decided to discard that agreement (executing the so-called "nuclear option"). Now they're paying the price.
Ultimately the electorate will judge what was done. At the moment, it appears that they're leaning against the Democrats' strategy, but we'll know more after the mid-term results are in.
Immoral moralization will draw anyone who's not going 100% with the program to eventually vote for the Trumps, AfDs, Farages etc.
Enough people who knew Kavanaugh in high school, college, and law school have now come forward with memories that contradict some of his recollections and testimony, especially about the frequency and severity of his drinking, that even if he did NOT do anything to Ford in high school they should raise at least sufficient doubts about his fitness for the Court on other grounds to justify more investigation.
Yet, the Senate majority is rushing to vote. What's the hurry? A couple years ago they said there is no problem whatsoever with the Court only having 8 Justices for an extended time (at least three Senators--Burr, Cruz, and Paul--said they were willing to hold it open for five years if Clinton got elected).
Surely they can take a couple weeks or even a month now and thoroughly vet Kavanaugh?
We're not trying to fill this post with not-quite-the-bottom-of-the-barrel, and we should stop trying. Lets try somebody clean to start with? Look for the best, instead of the not-the-worst?
And this dude is not being 'unfairly treated', forget that. I don't get to be a Supreme Court Justice either. Almost nobody does. He wants to do public service he can go volunteer at a Senior Center. Hell, he can take up woodworking, I don't care. He should just get the hell off the stage and lets start looking again.
No you can't. No judge the Republicans nominate will not be the target of some accusation by some woman at this point. If "the bar" is that no Democrat female accuses the nominee of something then then Supreme Court will be ...
... Maybe a woman judge would fill the bill?
Ah, now I get it.
Yes that's right. Make it impossible for a man to be a judge by insisting that any and all claims must be believed no matter how ancient, vague or implausible, to ensure that the court ends up packed with women.
If America continues down this path it will end very, very badly for women. We could easily end up returning to a time where women are disbelieved by default when they make an accusation of something. The Kavanaugh case has to be one of the clearest cases I can see of a frivolous politically motivated complaint (which is very likely false). Accusations of sexual assault are not tools to try and tilt the composition of courts.
Gorsuch faced no such accusations.
There are plenty of folks who have sterling records and stainless background, lets not kid ourselves. Pretending its persecution doesn't get you far.
There's no evidence its come to anything extreme. How about, try one more time? Is two people too many to ask?
Of course, then there's his behavior while testifying and the contradicting accounts of his drinking.
* criminal justice (where you mete out punishment, and want to act only against confirmed bad people (and in case of doubt, you don't act), and therefore you require very strong evidence against someone), and
* examining candidates for one of the most elevated positions in government (where you hand out power, and want to appoint only confirmed good people (and in case of doubt, you don't appoint), so fairly weak evidence against someone is enough.)
That's not really a particularly hard distinction to grasp.
For every event, there will be front page news stories alerting us to Facebook / Google / Amazon / Apple employees' reactions?
This is our news now?
I clicked this after seeing "Rift" and "Facebook" thinking it was some Oculus news, should have read the full title first...
Considering these companies have tens of thousands of employees, that will never happen.
It's impossible to prevent leaks with these kinds of numbers, and you can be sure the media would raise a huge stink if even one employee is punished for leaking. They would ruthlessly protect their sources.
It's just very unfortunate how politics is becoming such a major issue in what's supposed to be the leading edge of American technology. Instead of innovation, technical merit, sound engineering, and all the other things these employments are supposed to be about.
Politics and divisive discourse and posturing are squeezing out the important matters, and making people uncomfortable at work, a place supposed to be about work.
These are tech companies in that they sell tech. They are not tech companies as in parties who are only interested in building the best products using technology. As far as how they act silicon valley is turning just as bad as Wall Street
There's plenty of counterexamples.
There's huge companies much bigger than FB and Google that were never political outside of tech. Even in tech, you have Microsoft for example. I don't recall them ever being political in the 90s when they got huge. In fact, they don't seem political right now.
My point is that when you are at that scale your very existence is political, so there is no sense in trying to pretend politics does not exist.
[1] not an American, not living in US either - so don't know any details about the Kavanaugh-Issue
Wow. I hope engineers do quit. It's been unhealthy to the Silicon Valley ecosystem how many engineers Facebook has been hoovering up.
It's been incredibly unhealthy for tech firms to cowtow to every whim of their most extreme employees. I spent years at Google and it was astonishing sometimes the ludicrous crybaby behaviour some engineers could get away with. When it was just complaints about the food or reskinning a product it was not that dangerous. Now it's become a tool of all out political warfare, it's well past time these employees are told to get a grip or leave. Facebook won't suffer for it, it'll benefit - yes they may have a marginally smaller workforce, but which would they prefer? A slightly lower number of A/B experiments on their new dating product or whatever the marginal recent increase in headcount is working on? Or a happier and healthier internal atmosphere for all?
No, I stand corrected. This is not getting insane. This is firmly, two feet planted, inside insane territory. Is that what working at Facebook is like - if you go as controversial as supporting a Supreme Court judge, or a lifelong friend, or the idea of due process, you are basically not fit to work there? The small spark of sanity from Zuckerberg does not overcome the overall impression.
Maybe NYT is exaggerating things and this is just small vocal minority which does not reflect the climate in this huge company. One can certainly hope so. But is it true? Is here somebody working for FB that can say if it's indeed as this article seems to suggest - that FB has "policies" that one may violate by merely appearing in public near somebody like Judge Kavanaugh? That your position in the company and your job may be questioned and threatened if you do something like that?
Nowadays it seems like everything remotely related to politics has to be discussed in left/right sides, no buffering area. People has to be left or right. What surprises me is the lack of sympathy, seeing things from other people's perspective in both sides. At first I felt like that some of my female friends were overreacting to this Kavanaugh case because Kavanaugh could be totally innocent but I then learned that some of the complaints/remarks are not even about politics. It's more about their personal experience related to sexual harassment. And they did soften their views on the Kavanaugh case when I explained my perspective to them. The point here is that people should communicate, not start internet fights. Sympathy is the key and face-to-face communication probably work better than internet. What I see mostly on the internet when it comes to politics, even on YC, is pointing fingers at each other and that drives people even further away, more extreme to their views.
Back to Facebook, I think it's one of the greatest companies in the world. Just how many companies in the world that would allow such discussion inside the company? Questioning one of the highest executives? Questioning the CEO/Boss? The opinion of every employee matters? And still function so well? Wow, unheard of. People in Silicon Valley is definitely leaning way more toward left than right, especially at big tech firms. However, such open communication inside the company is remarkable and it kind of mirrors the real word when it comes to US politics. Though such open communication can be biased, skewed to one-sided opinion but removing the open communication will not resolve the root problems. Open communication, even online fights, is better than no communication at all. I originally came from a country with complete dictatorship and any discussions about politics/government is banned completely online. It seems very "peaceful and stable" and does have quite a lot of advantages (with millions of problems lurking around) than democracy. However, I think in US it may seem very chaotic/annoying inside the company/country, but it performs well as a whole. The VP who supported Kavanaugh and Zuckerberg seemed to stand their original side and no stories of FB employees going crazy/quitting job coming out (yet?) after this. The point here is democracy, in my opinion, is a privilege and credits should be given to Facebook/Zuckerberg for cultivating such open and unique culture.
That's my two cents. Peace out.
When he talks about global policies at work - sure. Otherwise - no, he does not. Out of work, he does not represent anybody but himself.
> the values of it and he did it without seeking any consultations from the company.
The idea that a person should seek a permission from a company lawyer to live their personal life is mind-bogglingly wrong and misguided.
> The point here is that people should communicate, not start internet fights.
That would be nice, but if mere act of being present next to an unperson brings calls to fire the thouughtcriminal, is there communication intended? Do the people who demand it want communication or they want prosecution and banishing the heretic?
> Just how many companies in the world that would allow such discussion inside the company?
Depends on the discussion. If you try to out-politcorrect your peers - probably any of them. But try to go the opposite direction - and you find yourself out of the door holding a box pretty quickly. Yes, in this case in FB sanity prevailed, after personal involvement of the CEO. But who can guarantee it would prevail the next time?
> The opinion of every employee matters?
I wonder how much would employee opinion matter if the employee would question some PC-approved company move and for how long such employee would remain an employee. We know the answer for Google. Is it different for FB? I suspect we may find out soon.
> The point here is democracy, in my opinion, is a privilege and credits should be given to Facebook/Zuckerberg for cultivating such open and unique culture.
It's not their culture. It's our culture, whole people, and FB employees that try to remove an executive because he sat on the wrong side on a wrong hearing are not contributing to this culture, they are hurting it. Of course, the democracy in the US is way bigger than Facebook, and Facebook will not hurt it, but people in FB that do things like described above are working against it, and deserve not praise but condemnation.
So what’s behind this overreaction? The dual need to get paid a fortune and be able to virtue signal about your employer’s political alignment at dinner parties?
Do you work there or know someone close who does? This small glimpse into their corporate culture (not to mention Mark or Sharyl's public speeches) is not really indicative of what the ground-level culture is like.
My guess: they're an SV company and the liberal-majority culture of the valley infuses FB.
For the first time ever today, I got a "Sponsored (political)" tweet on my timeline, from Kamala Harris (whom I do not follow), saying: "We need just 198,248 more people to reach our new goal of 1.5 million Americans against Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States. Will you add your name right now?"
When did Twitter start doing "Sponsored (political)"? This seems like a terrible idea.
In all, its understandable. Americans tie their occupation to their identify, but I think we are starting the encroach upon the limits of these expectations.
I think the critism of Kaplan is fair not only because he's an executive at Facebook, but because he's their top policy guy and Facebook as been railroaded by the right because of suspicion of bias. It's obviously within his will to show support for his friend, but as someone who I'd think has a feel for politics this was a terrible political/optical move. Especially to be within camera shot of Kavanaugh.
The culture war works both ways. Until someone reins in the provocation culture the outrage will continue.
Maybe as things improve, expectations improve faster? "Perfection is almost within reach! All we have to do is eliminate these few remaining flaws..."
So we get this cascade of ludicrous complaints, like the senior police officer in the UK who was suspended for saying "our behaviour must be whiter than white" because using a common idiom for 'not corrupt' is now racist. There's no logic to it, but the ability to anonymously exercise power over a huge organisation at will is irresistable to too many.
This will end only when strong leaders start firing people who try to claim offence at trivial things. The pendulum will eventually swing back - it has to, organisations that don't let it swing will be destroyed by the constant infighting over power.
Letting junior employees think their opinions matter is an enormous mistake.
If you're looking for an analogy to American politics as "second civil war", it won't help. But if you're looking for how two sides are willing to destroy themselves trying to destroy each other, it's amazing.
The buildup to the war was about slavery. The aftermath of the war was about what we replaced slavery with... and it’s not pretty.
Here’s an article with a few book recommendations to get you started. https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2015/04/25/seven-books-reco...
I personally recommend “Reconstruction, America’s Unfinished Revolution” by Eric Foner. It’s a solid read but well worth it in my opinion.
But from the civil war to Julius Caesar was only 30 years...
/r/AskHistorians' Book List might be cover pretty much anything else:
Americans are actively dehumanising each other. Everyone needs to calm down and stop hating or this is going to end very badly.
What is intolerance anyway? It's not believing that a certain behavior is wrong. That's not intolerance. Intolerance is shouting people down because you don't agree with them or creating a hostile environment for opposing viewpoints. That's a behavior that reminds me of one side much more than the other.
I'm not putting blame here. One side just takes politics more seriously, for now.
You just called out one side as worse and then try to claim you're not putting blame? That's not really believeable.
If we're just throwing out reasons too, then how about how the Republican party decided to not compromise on anything anymore after Obama was elected? When one side refuses to compromise on anything, the other side can only lose by attempting to compromise. This situation is the only possible result from turning politics into a verbal form of total war
> You just called out one side as worse and then try to claim you're not putting blame?
I said one side takes politics more seriously, that's what I said. But sure, if you believe in democracy then their behavior isn't exactly conducive to a well functioning democracy, now is it?
> When one side refuses to compromise on anything
That's hilarious. The republican party is the democratic party, just 10 years behind. It compromises on everything. The beautiful Republican party features the likes of marxists turned neocons because they took an interest in Israel (or so Wikipedia says).
>Here’s John Boehner, the likely speaker if Republicans take the House, offering his plans for Obama’s agenda: “We're going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”
It was a public and documented plan by the Republican party to not compromise on a single issue with the Obama administration. You're evidence that liberals are less tolerant is also a study of a single college campus. Bring some more evidence if you are going to make claims that have gone against the past 10 years of public discourse
Sounds about right
He stands accused of sexual assault, and instead of fully reviewing the facts and allowing a third party to investigate every lead, Republicans in the White House have tied the FBI's hands[2]. Worse, they've done this and have chosen to mislead the American public into believing that they are not doing this[3].
1. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/how-we-know-kavanaugh...
2. https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1047887560612216832
3. https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1047879134737780737
It's a way to dismiss a person in the worst way; saying your opinion doesn't matter.
Sounds like FB had a major own-goal moment.
Well, that used to be the case. When Facebook employees become as strongly opposed to the shady, borderline criminal, activities of their employer that they themselves (literally) enable through the code they write, then just maybe I'll be inclined to be more sympathetic to their other grievances.