If you run or help run a business of any sort, you know that hiring is one of the most important things you do. Good people can make or break any organization. Hire hard workers with great attitudes who are smart and fit your company culture, and your likelihood of success skyrockets. Conversely, hire too many lazy malcontents with bad character who are always looking for ways to avoid as much actual work as possible, and you’ll be out of business quicker than Anthony Scaramucci’s stint at the Trump White House.
Obviously, exercising discretion in your hiring practices doesn’t mean you need to illegally discriminate. Yes it’s dumb, not to mention bad business, to make employment decisions based on immutable characteristics like race, sex, or national origin. However, that doesn’t mean ‘discrimination’ is a bad word per se. In fact, exercising the right kind of hiring discrimination is a primary key to success. If you want hard working people with character who fit well within the culture of your organization, you’re by definition discriminating against those who aren’t those things.
But there’s another kind of discrimination people on the right have often been victims of but likely have never thought of practicing themselves - the political kind. Obviously, left-wing discrimination against those with right-of-center political views is so ubiquitous these days there’s even a moniker attached to it - cancel culture. Dare to express conservative views these days to the wrong people or even on your own social media channels and everyone knows you could be much more than publicly shunned, you could be out of a job entirely.
Still, since conservatives tend to be hard workers who typically don’t have a lot of time for shenanigans like street protesting and wearing Handmaid’s Tale costumes and pussy hats, leftists who practice political discrimination are shooting themselves in the foot and harming their business over the long haul. Who’s going to get the actual work done?
On the other hand, right-wingers who decide to take a page out of the leftist playbook and practice a little political discrimination themselves could reap huge rewards. Not only do you avoid having to deal with irrational, unstable people who are likely to drag your business down, you also have a better chance of hiring high performing team players who can actually help your business succeed.
One rare example of at least a show of political discrimination by someone on the right is a picture that makes the social media rounds every so often of a paper supposedly posted at a business which read: “Job Applicants Please Note: We do not hire LIBERALS. (emphasis original) This is not because we disagree with their political views. It is because working here requires superior reasoning, logic and reading comprehension skills, and in our experience, Liberals are deficient in those areas. We have found that they make decisions based on their emotions, not logic. This would be very detrimental to our business.”
That picture always predictably stirs up a fresh round of debate wherever it is posted and is routinely mocked by liberals as itself an example of an action based on “emotions, not logic.” Commenters conditioned to the idea of discrimination as always bad (except against conservatives, of course) also question the legality of such a move, assuming it actually happened and was even posted by a real business.
Except, political discrimination is mostly legal in the United States. Per Forbes: “To a large extent, private employers may discriminate against their employees and job applicants based on political beliefs and some political activities. This is because political behaviors and beliefs are not protected classes under the major employment anti-discrimination laws, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Also, First Amendment protections do not apply in the private employment setting.”
Some states, like California and New Mexico, have laws prohibiting employers from discriminating based on political views, but most do not. However, companies that seek to practice this would need to be sure actual legally protected categories aren’t negatively affected by such a policy. For example, if you operate in a predominately black neighborhood and your workforce ends up mostly white because of political discrimination, you might find yourself in some ‘disparate impact’ hot water.
Even so, careful political discrimination does seem to be something companies might should consider, if they aren’t doing it already. And many probably are, if quietly. After all, who wants a loud, obnoxious social justice warrior on their staff constantly stirring up trouble where none existed before? Why else do you think Colin Kaepernick has yet to find himself on an NFL roster? Is it because the NFL - which employs mostly black people - hates black people? Obviously not. Is it because he was a horrible player? I know many critics like to say he was, but if you separate your feelings about his politics from his performance on the field, Kaepernick was actually a middle-of-the-road starting quarterback, or at the very least a serviceable backup. No, it was something else, and we all know what that was.
It’s not that people shouldn’t have opinions - even left-leaning ones - and feel free to express them. It's also not to say that all Biden voters make horrible employees. But sadly, given the socialist, anti-capitalist and anti-business bent of leftism these days, that ideology and being a productive employee often doesn't mix. There’s a fine line between having and expressing left-of-center political views and the kind of activism that directly affects an employer, especially if they are disparaging said employer and saying or doing things that actively make business more difficult.
Speaking of, if ever there was an organization that could have benefitted from some careful political discrimination, former President Donald Trump’s comes first to mind. Imagine all the back-stabbings and disruptions to his agenda he could have avoided had he simply hired different people, especially early in his term. Despite Trump’s pre-politics reputation as a smart hirer, he was anything but, and it showed bigly. Companies would be wise to learn from his mistakes.
Follow Scott on Twitter and Truth Social!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member