If you have had food delivered to your home or office from a favorite restaurant that doesn’t offer in-house delivery service, chances are you’ve used a service called GrubHub.
Following Donald Trump’s victory, Grubhub’s CEO and Democratic donor Matt Maloney sent an email to the more than 1,000 employees the next day that read in part:
Some employees said they got the impression they were not welcome at Grubhub if they supported Donald Trump. On Friday, Maloney insisted his email was “misconstrued, technology-based.” But that sounds more like damage control than anything else.
This development comes on the heels of reports of a similar rift in Silicon Valley involving PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and his support for Donald Trump. As Bloomberg reported, a startup founder said he regretted taking money from a Trump backer, and one venture capital firm rejected an investor and his $500,000 in technology-based seed fund because he refused to disavow and sever all ties with Thiel.
The message seems relatively clear: Support the wrong person or politics, and we’ll punish you for it.
This was not difficult to see coming. In 2014, Brendan Eich, who at the time was CEO of Mozilla, was forced to step down after howls of outrage erupted over his support of Proposition 8 in California, which passed, banning gay marriage in the state. (It was eventually overturned and became moot when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled gay marriage is a constitutionally protected right.)
Eich’s donation only came to light because of a California law requiring disclosure of personal information including the name, address, occupation and employer’s name of anybody who gives $100 or more to a campaign for or against a state ballot initiative. It was initially reported Eich’s named was “leaked,” but in reality, his donation was made available via the Los Angeles Times in an easily searchable database. While forcing Eich out, Mozilla’s executive chairwoman had the temerity to remark, “We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public.” Apparently not.
Ironically, the left is now engaging in the tactics it has been fretting about for more than twenty years: the weaponization of politics. It is the left, not the right, looking to punish people who hold political views that stand in opposition to their own. Mere disagreement is no longer acceptable. The left will ostracize those deemed the “others.”
The roots can to a certain extent be traced back to 2008 when Senator Barack Obama implored supporters to “argue” with neighbors and “get in their face” if they weren’t on board with his agenda. It stands to reason that at some point, people would take that advice literally. Once that point is reached, it’s only a matter of time before things get ugly.
In a way, Donald Trump’s rise indicates a pushback against this kind of weaponization. Trump mowed through the GOP primary and defeated Hillary Clinton despite leaving a trail of questionable comments and statements in his wake. He simply refused to be cowed.
The backlash Maloney faced for his controversial email was immediate and fierce. The #boycottgrubhub hashtag was trending most of last Thursday and GrubHub’s stock closed out the week with a 9 percent decline—a week when the stock market enjoyed its biggest gains in five years.
Considering the weak position Democrats are in politically and strategically—the GOP will control the White House, Senate and House for at least two years, and there are just six states where Democrats control both the governorship and state legislatures—businessmen like Matt Maloney would do better to focus on running their business instead of chastising employees for their political choices.
Jay Caruso is assistant managing editor at Red State.
