Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

Honestly, why don't people keep their politics out of the workplace entirely? Unless you are working at a lobbying firm or whatever, work should be about work, not about being a place to discuss gun rights, abortion, or immigration.

&quot;John: If I walked into work with a &quot;Make America Great Again&quot; hat, there would be repercussions. Quite a few people would take it as a personal affront, and I would expect to be out of the company within weeks, if not a month.&quot;<p>If someone walked in with a young earth creationist hat I would similarly question their ability to think critically (and have a hard time not just categorizing them as stupid). Is this really about politics?<p>It&#x27;s not because they&#x27;re &#x27;conservative&#x27;, it&#x27;s just given access to the same available information some conclusions are just weak and it&#x27;s reasonable to lose respect for people when they hold them.

I&#x27;ve worked places (not in tech) where I was not allowed to talk about my support for Barack Obama for fear of being shouted down, mocked, or forced to listen to racist diatribes about his history. I have been on the other side of this kind of bullshit. I moved from the small, Midwestern town that harbored these people and their insane beliefs to a liberal, coastal city that &quot;gets&quot; me a little more. I&#x27;m happier for it. I work with other coastal liberals and none of us have much respect for anyone who out-and-out supports Donald Trump, and we probably won&#x27;t any time soon. A lot of us share this background.<p>I suggest these men do the same. Move to Dallas or New York or somewhere where conservatism is a little more appreciated. Move to Denver or Atlanta. Find somewhere that feels like home, where there are other conservative techies. Claiming the victim status as a white man in the most expensive city, in the highest paying industry comes off as a little entitled, at least to me.

Yeah there&#x27;s definitely some things that are taboo to talk about because it&#x27;s too political. I for one, am a liberal gun owner, which gives me a unique perspective in that I understand where a lot of liberals are coming from, but I also understand how conservatives feel when liberals constantly attack their viewpoints and try to silence them. It&#x27;s funny how many debates I get into with other liberals about guns when they&#x27;ve never held or shot a gun in their life and yet claim to know everything about it. And the amount of moral superiority they hold around their viewpoints is staggering, truly a &quot;I&#x27;m right you&#x27;re wrong and an idiot&quot; mentality.<p>If there&#x27;s one thing I recommend everyone to do is just listen to the other side and at least TRY to see their perspective even if you disagree.

As someone who is in no way a part of Silicon Valley: does anyone really care how fiscally conservative or liberal you are? I always thought it was the social issues that caused the problem. Whether it&#x27;s misrepresenting statistics to justify sexism or saying that some people deserve less rights because of their sexual orientation.

One of the problems that we face in the US today is that our two political parties, which once divided the electorate across fault lines of policy or values, now appear to have reshuffled the electorate across epistemologies. I sincerely believe that one party now provides a happier home for those who prefer empirical science.

Everytime I read one of these viewpoints I hear: &#x27;I think others should be descriminated against and for that I am getting descriminated against? How dare they descriminate against my right to descriminate!&#x27;

The ultimate irony is that many conservatives will hesitate before commenting on this here, because people don&#x27;t want to be on the receiving end of a torrent of downvotes.

Why do people voice personal political views at work? Is this a California thing?

Why would you <i>not</i> expect your co-workers to take a MAGA hat as a personal attack? The MAGA platform is associated with explicitly barring some of them from the country. Remember that even some green card holders were briefly barred from reentering. [1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Executive_Order_13769#Green-card_holders" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Executive_Order_13769#Green-ca...</a>

Nice little plug for Quora there. Probably tells us something about who &quot;John&quot; really is. For the record, Quora is a very <i>poor</i> place to have such debates. It&#x27;s a very strict question and answer format, with many &quot;why did Obama kill a hundred babies and drink their blood&quot; questions on every political topic. Just about any other place, including here, is better for a political debate.

Ignoring for a moment the moral judgement of whether conservatism is &quot;right&quot; or &quot;wrong&quot; ...<p>I imagine this is probably how closeted gay people felt for a long time, and still do outside of places like the Bay Area. It&#x27;s poetic justice. The playing field will probably wobble back and forth for a little while and white conservative men will learn to play by the new rules - claiming victim status is as good a place to start as any.

Warning: fascinating article, but auto-playing video.

Sorry, but if you don&#x27;t have the courage to speak your truth, then you deserve the chains of slavery that you choose to wear and the dearth of self-respect that comes with it.