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I think it depends. For a political opinion, unless that opinion in some way affects your ability to do your actual job or you’re the public face of your company, I think not only should it not get you fired but it should be protected with the same sort of rules that religion gets — you shouldn’t be able to fire liberals or conservatives for simply stating something you disagree with, much like you can’t fire a Muslim for being a Muslim. If it’s an opinion like “woman can’t do X” and people who do X are direct reports, you hire people to do X, or serve clients who do X, that’s a different thing, it’s affecting your ability to do your job. Likewise if you’re doing marketing for a company or are in some public facing role for the company, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a company to protect its image by firing a person who’s going to make them look bad.
Having said all that “too bad the shooter missed” isn’t political, it’s condoning violence. I don’t think she’d get the same response if she’d have just said “I don’t like Trump.” That’s not why she got fired. She wanted Trump dead, that’s why she got fired. It’s a different opinion.
I would rather both religion and politics lose those rules than maintain the mostly one-sided semblance of protection they currently have.
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Seems like this principle could be stretched arbitrarily far. "I support Israel and hope they are able to achieve their military objectives in Gaza in a timely fashion" is also condoning violence.
Eh. All succinctly-stated principles can be stretched arbitrarily far. This is a good thing, because it's not that the principle ever "runs out" or stops, it's that it runs into a conflicting principle with a greater priority in the topic at hand. When "don't advocate for violence" runs into "sometimes we have to support just wars," the former principle doesn't cease to exist, and should in fact inform and temper to some extent our obedience to the latter principle.
Obviously we all obey multiple principles, and each of them takes priority in different situations. Objecting that a single stated principle can be stretched overly much is similar to an isolated demand for rigor, because it assumes/implies that the original comment advocates for following only that one single principle, meaning that the only way for the principle to be correct is if it encapsulates the sum total of morality.
Put another way, statements like "self defense is justified" and "violence is not political" do not inherently claim to solve for all possible edge cases and shouldn't be read that way.
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Reciprocal violence is still violence.
Of course, my point is that no one here thinks that someone should lose their job because of tweeting something like that, even though it violates the "condoning violence" clause outlined above.
No probably not.
I suspect some may draw a distinction between condoning or advocating for specific political violence domestically and general or specific military violence by a foreign state against their forever conflict opponent.
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We saw people twist Damore’s words on overlapping distributions into this statement, and fired on the rationale that women couldn’t work around him.
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I disagree. Wanting Trump dead is political. But a line has to be drawn somewhere, and you draw it here. I feel it's arbitrary.
If political expressions of employees should be defended, then even the wackiest of nutjobs should be safe from getting fired.
What is uniquely bad about violence? Would you say that violence is an assault on the system that protects freedom of expression and freedom of political affiliation? That because the employee rejects this system, he no longer deserves its protection?
But what if the employee is a rabid monarchist, a communist, or Nazi? The explicit aim of these ideologies is to dismantle the current democratic system, to overthrow the government, and to impose authoritarian rule. Fired?
Line where free speech ends and crime begins had been drawn, in US, as "incitement to imminent lawless action".
"Billy Bob deserves to be hanged" - free speech.
"Here lives Billy Bob, go and hang him!" - incitement.
Yeah. Saying, "too bad the shooter missed" isn't incitement, so the employee shouldn't be fired.
If the person she posted about wasn’t famous in any way, would you still see it as “just an opinion?” If she saw news about a drunk uncle getting robbed at gun point and said “so sad the shooter missed,” it’s hard to see this as anything other than wanting them dead. And I think in either case, the same thing — businesses are perfectly free to have policies that forbid violence or threats of violence.
There was no actual violence or even incitement of violence in what the Home Depot lady said. You implicitly acknowledged this by making your hypothetical non-political since wishing a politician's death is just another political opinion.
Trump is not just any person. This comparison doesn't make sense because Trump is literally the presidential nominee. The opinion expressed about Trump's shooting is a political one.
You specifically stated that political expression should be tolerated. If you were to adhere to monarchist, communist, or Nazi beliefs, you would be advocating for even more violence. And this would be actual violence, not just wishing someone be dead.
To make the equivocation you want to make, this "drunk uncle" would have to be himself at fault for getting robbed. The uncle, after getting drunk at the local pub, looking for a fight, approached some guy on the street. But he messed with the wrong guy and got himself robbed at gunpoint.
What your hypothetical person would say is, "fuck around and find out." Because this is what many liberals believe.
The Home Depot lady, like many liberals, likely believes that Trump is a threat to democracy and that he is responsible for the current state of political affairs. Trump is at fault for destabilizing politics and, consequently, almost getting himself assassinated.
From this point of view then, it makes sense to wish that the sniper had not missed. Trump fucked around and found out (almost). It would have only been fair.
The problem is that our current political situation is not the fault of one single ex-real-estate-mogul-cum-reality-TV-star-cum-President. It is the fault of the sum of the actions and reactions of millions of Americans (and foreigners) on both sides, spurred by concerns material and ideological. Part of the blame rests on Trump. Part of the blame rests on liberals who are so quick to condemn democracy to save Democracy that they encourage assassinations of former Presidents/current candidates.
So going by the Home Depot lady’s logic (or rather, your logic): she is part of the problem responsible for the current state of political affairs. She fucked around and found out. Her losing her job is only fair.
Do you see the problem with this sort of approach to politics?
No, OP said that expressing political opinions should not get you fired. This is the assumption we're operating from.
The only discussion we can have here is whether or not wishing the death of a political figure is tantamount to violence. (It's not)
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That's enough to conclude the employee shouldn't be arrested; not enough to conclude the employee shouldn't be fired. If Billy Bob is among your customer base and there's now only one way to make him feel safe walking down your rope aisle then maybe you do what you need to for him to feel safe.
IIRC the (ex-)Home-Depot lady didn't even go that far, it was more like "Billy Bob's favorite candidate deserves to be hanged", with Billy (and his compatriots) in no danger, but it's still defensible for a judgement call to land somewhere in between "we should just ignore this" and "we need to call the cops right now".
Being a communist will upset some customers too; however, it shouldn't get you fired. OP stated that employees' political expression should be protected as long as it doesn't "affect your ability to do your actual job":
I do not think that the Home Depot lady's opinions affected her job performance. If, instead of saying that the shooter shouldn't have missed, she had expressed literally any other political opinion, I assume OP would have defended her.
But OP's standards for who to fire suddenly change here. This political expression is out of bounds. But why?
Politics will inevitably make some customers uncomfortable. If you decide that employees have the right to express their political opinions, then you, as an employer and business owner, will have to just suck it up and deal with the uncomfortable customers.
This one includes an implied threat of violence. I don’t think it’s that hard to follow. Most companies already covered this in their “zero tolerance for violence and threats” policy.
I also don’t think I’m defending politics at work. This was her own private page, and to my knowledge she wasn’t going around talking about politics to everyone who walked up to her area. On the clock, I would expect anyone checking people out to stick to business and not harass people with political opinions.
Just to be clear. My policy in a perfect world would be that employees opinions posted on their own social media on their own devices on their own time are none of my business unless they promote or condone violence. The only exception would be public roles (media or marketing directors, C-suite, paid actors) or people making hiring decisions directly related to the political opinions they’re giving.
If it’s not that hard to follow, please explain it to me, because I don’t see any implied threat of violence here.
If you were assaulted at gunpoint, and I posted on Facebook the next day that I’m “very sad the shooter missed,” would you feel threatened by this?
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