Silicon Valley – They’re Tearing Us Apart

Politics has never meshed well in the workplace, but in the past the clash has mostly been between owners/senior managers, on the one hand, and the mass of blue-collar and clerical white-collar workforce below, on the other. The old-world union vs. management schism. In the above chart, presented in the February 28^th FastCompany.com by survey company Morning Consult and commissioned by the conservative-leaning nonprofit Lincoln Network, are the results of a recent political attitude poll taken in California’s Silicon Valley.

“Among those surveyed, 45% say that their company promotes a political agenda. That leaning tends to be toward the left, with 48% of respondents saying their company has a clear liberal agenda, as opposed to the 38% who reported a conservative agenda.” FastCompany.com But what is a “conservative”? Is Donald Trump’s populism, favoring tariffs and import restrictions and catering strongly to displaced union workers, a conservative position? Is Trump’s withdrawal from global conflicts, often a liberal calling card, the new “right wing”? Because the traditionally-conservative Republican Party embraces this vector, along with traditional conservative values of lower taxes and deregulation, does this make everything Trump effectively the definition of a modern American “conservative”?

As younger generations, who never lived through the rage of capitalism vs socialism (or its de facto autocratic extreme, communism), look at massive income inequality, hideous post-secondary education costs, unaffordable housing where jobs exists, displacement from automation (the equipment is owned by the rich) and a volatile job market, does the fact that the “S” word – socialism – represents a viable political choice for many of them alter the meaning of the word “liberal”? Bernie Sanders’ sustained rhetoric, once considered fringe-radicalism, correctly sounds as if it has been around for a while… an acceptable political choice. He seems lost in a sea of too many “progressive” Democratic presidential candidates towing his left-of-center polices, where the difference between socialism (which involves government ownership of the industrial and commercial institutions) and favoring government-backed social programs often gets lost in translation.

Today, the political polarization is vastly more-evenly spread throughout the work force. And that’s a huge problem that actually impacts the viability of the United States as a cohesive and sustainable nation. Hoi polloi workers are now divided among themselves, often finding their bosses and owners more liberal than they are. Regionally, it is equally difficult to be a liberal at any level and live in West Virginia or Wyoming. But even in urban concentrations in blue states, political beliefs are hardly uniform. Where there is a diversity of political beliefs “on the shop floor,” the workplace is increasingly becoming a place where strongly-held political stands create very nasty friction among and between workers… as well as their management. That friction may ripple up and down the entire strata in the company.

The Silicon Valley isn’t the only place where politics in the workplace are driving wedges between workers, but it is exemplary. Sean Captain, writing for the above-referenced article in FastCompany.com, notes: “Whether they agree or disagree with their company’s politics, fear about ideological conflicts with colleagues runs across all political groups: very liberal, liberal, moderate, conservative, very conservative, and libertarian.

“Nearly half of employees at companies with political agendas said their ideological views impacted their ability to work. At companies perceived to have a political agenda, 63% of workers said that ridicule in the workplace is commonplace if you disagree with a colleague, while only 21% said that happens at their apolitical companies…

“Lincoln leans conservative: Its leaders have been active in Republican politics, and they launched the survey effort in 2017 ‘to collect data on potential anti-conservative bias in Silicon Valley.’ Still, it claims to have no influence on the data itself. ‘Morning Consult, as an independent party, collected all of the quantitative data,’ says Lincoln cofounder Garrett Johnson, who worked for Florida governor Jeb Bush and Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana.

“Lincoln also conducted an online survey of a few dozen tech workers to solicit opinions and anecdotes, similar to its contentious survey from 2017-2018. Some of those quotes pepper Lincoln’s report on the Morning Consult survey. ‘I am happy, with the exception of my time at work where I feel like the choices I have made in my beliefs label me as stupid, a bigot, deplored, and more . . .’ one anonymous tech worker wrote. ‘I am coming to the conclusion that we cannot live or work together any longer.’

“In an op-ed for Fox News on Thursday, Johnson echoed his previous complaints about bias against conservatives in tech, saying the new data ‘confirm a stunning level of viewpoint intolerance in the tech community,’ and ‘reveal an epidemic of polarization and intolerance in Silicon Valley and the broader tech community [that] presents an important opportunity for tech leadership to cultivate a culture of viewpoint inclusion.’

“But I’ve also interviewed a handful or workers from major tech companies–on and off the record–over the past year, who have provided some insight on the results that are more nuanced than Johnson’s focus on bias. And when I spoke with a few survey respondents who agreed to an interview, I found their stories of discrimination less severe than appeared in the short comments gathered by Lincoln Network. Still, they do see their workplaces as much more friendly to colleagues who are openly left than even a bit conservative. (Workers spoke on condition of anonymity due to concern about backlash from colleagues.).”

We are fracturing at so many levels within our nation – regional, urban vs rural, populist nationalism vs diversity, rich vs poor, white vs other, evangelical vs other faiths/no faith, etc. There are efforts, noted above, to embrace ideological tolerance, and indeed as the population adds higher levels of education to the average experience (e.g., 59% of millennials have at least some college education), that tolerance grows. But as the tech field leads us into the uncharted world of artificial intelligence, as unchecked population growth meets the decimation of global climate change, we are going to need every bit of ingenuity, every ounce of unified commitment, to advance humanity in future years.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and with the levels of American polarization still growing, will we recover that cohesive level of American acceptance of divergent viewpoints in time to salvage our political future?