Thread by @NateAFischer

You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.

Thread 1/23

Many in business would rather go about their work and ignore the political battles that increasingly divide our country. But the left will not leave you this option. 2/23

Growing numbers of people have committed themselves to a woke ideology. In the workplace, these people politicize ordinary activities, conversations, and even words—and demand that employers/suppliers/partners/etc. bend to their demands. 3/23

As the responses to the Coinbase and Basecamp decisions to ban workplace politics makes clear, even a rejection of politics is treated as political.

You will have no choice but to take a side. 4/23

The left’s cultural and institutional power makes theirs the path of least resistance for most. Often this starts with seemingly anodyne acts: rainbow flags superimposed on logos, statements that “Black Lives Matter,” small donations to activist orgs. 5/23

More substantive demands follow, such as diversity programs, changes in hiring standards, “anti-racism” training sessions. These are still rationalized on business grounds (undervalued talent, team cohesion, HBS studies showing how diversity means better decisions)... 6/23

...even though the supporting evidence often seems dubious and the most obvious impact is more bureaucracy (and bureaucrats to administer it). 7/23

It will not stop there. You cannot know the limits to their demands. But their response to a rejection of even one of these makes clear the intolerance of their ideology. 8/23

These are not just marginal costs—a woke tax of sorts that lets you otherwise run your business as you want. Rather, they will stifle dynamism, drive away freer-thinking employees, and alienate half of America’s population (who will choose alternatives as these arise). 9/23

Many of these demands—even if initially tempered or covered in a management-friendly veneer—are actually designed to subvert the market system on which your business was built. They developed out of critical theory concepts fundamentally opposed to this market system. 10/23

Your business will become thoroughly subject to an ideological regime whose totalitarian impulses have already been revealed, and whose ultimate goals are antithetical to your survival. 11/23

How much will their demands cost you? What share of your profits will their programs consume? Will they let you keep your job if you play ball, or will an arbitrary infraction serve as the pretext for your quiet marginalization—or ritual public sacrifice? 12/23

Why invest in building a career, recruiting a team, developing a market, or building a professional network that remains contingent on keeping the woke mobs happy?

Doing so only cements their power over you, subjecting you to a harsh, arbitrary, and insatiable master. 13/23

There is a better path.

You can reject the woke demands, refuse to make even the token gestures they demand, and invest instead in relationships and partnerships with people and orgs who have likewise steeled themselves against the mob’s opprobrium. 14/23

The sooner you make this decision, the less disruptive it will be: you’ll lose fewer employees and customers, have made fewer difficult-to-reverse organizational decisions, and done less to bend your brand and culture to fit the woke narrative. 15/23

Most importantly, you’ll have more friends to stand by your side as you face the inevitable slander and attacks.

Because this path will not be easy either. The left will use their power to punish you. 16/23

Even if you've focused on relationships less vulnerable to these attacks, they may place immense pressure on junior people in your company, or even family members of junior people in orgs that so much as associate with you. 17/23

They may launch accusations that scare people who have not yet learned that terms like "racism" and "harassment" no longer have any meaning when used in such contexts. They may use government agencies to impede your permit applications, harass you over foot faults, and... 18/23

...launch investigations based on the lies of your enemies. Companies in industries such as finance may hesitate to do business with you simply because they know it risks making them an attractive target for politicized regulators who have great discretion in such sectors. 19/23

There is no escaping the political conflict we face.

So you can at least side with those who aren't committed to destroying your way of life. 20/23

Whether you publicly and explicitly side with the right or frame your response as a rejection of politics to focus on your mission as a company, the woke mobs will treat you as their enemy. 21/23

However you frame your stance, recognize that your friends will be others who have sided against the left—especially those who have done so publicly.

Act accordingly: show them the loyalty you want them to show you. We will all face this mob, and we must stand together. 22/23

As hostile cultural forces dominate public discourse and drive legacy institutions to side with the left, we are organizing the other side.

You are not alone. There is a vibrant and growing group of people committed to a better vision. Join us.

23/23
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