Evil Geek Owner of GrubHub: If You Agree With Trump, You Have No Place In My Company

Obviously he's now denying he meant what he obviously meant.

Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney is facing a firestorm after speaking out against President-elect Donald Trump in an email to employees Wednesday, saying if employees don't agree with creating a culture of support and inclusiveness, they should resign.

In the original, nearly 300-word email sent to the online food-ordering company's 1,400 employees Wednesday afternoon, Maloney said he rejects the "nationalist, anti-immigrant and hateful politics of Donald Trump."

By the next afternoon, a Twitter campaign to boycott the company was in full force, as headlines claimed he told all pro-Trump employees to resign.

Maloney said in a blog post Thursday night his comments had been misconstrued, and that he was trying to say he doesn’t tolerate discriminatory activity or hateful commentary -- not encourage Trump voters to quit.

In the original email, Maloney wrote: "While demeaning, insulting and ridiculing minorities, immigrants and the physically/mentally disabled worked for Mr. Trump, I want to be clear that his behavior - and these views, have no place at Grubhub. Had he worked here, many of his comments would have resulted in his immediate termination."

He also wrote that the company promised to fight for any employee who was scared or felt personally exposed.

"If you do not agree with this statement then please reply to this email with your resignation because you have no place here," he wrote. "We do not tolerate hateful attitudes on our team."

In an emailed statement to Blue Sky, Maloney said his original email wasn't intended to call out all Trump supporters.

"At Grubhub, we welcome and accept employees with all political beliefs, no matter who they voted for in this or any election," he said. "We do not discriminate on the basis of someone's principles, or otherwise. The message was intended to advocate for inclusion and tolerance -- regardless of political affiliation -- during this time of transition for our country."

In a tweet that was later deleted, Maloney added: "To be clear, GrubHub does not tolerate hate and we are proud of all our employees - even those who voted for Trump."

In a statement posted by Grubhub later Thursday evening, Maloney said his comments had been misconstrued.

"I want to clarify that I did not ask for anyone to resign if they voted for Trump," the statement said. "I would never make such a demand."

There's now a boycott on, and Grubhub (a publicly traded company) dropped 2% since this event. It actually was down as far as 6%, but I guess people saw a buying opportunity and bought it back up. But as of earlier this morning, it was down 5%.

I of course advise everyone to vote with their dollars: #boycottgrubhub.

Allah claims that it's a "Trumpian" will-to-power move to boycott someone who is threatening his employees for not following the literal company line. He implies -- stop me if you've heard this before -- that Good Conservatives are corrupted by "Trumpian" tactics and are of course now monsters.

Completely novel take from Allahpundit.

I never get the people who claim that Social Justice Warriors are free to use social coercion and boycotts to inflict their will upon others, but it's somehow untoward of conservatives to use the same tactics against the Social Justice Warriors.

I emphatically do not support these tactics -- except in the limited circumstance of using these tactics against those who themselves use these tactics.*

I do not support arson, but I do support fighting fire with fire. The people claiming that others can set fire to us but we must be #Principled and not deploy fire as a weapon in reprisal will have to explain this curious ethic of surrender rather than just asserting it.

Let's analogize this to the use of physical force against someone. Generally, it is forbidden. You can be arrested for assaulting someone, and also sued.

But the law does permit you to use force to defend yourself against another's use of force, or to defend another person from someone's use of force against him.

The ban on the use of force is not absolute, as Allah seems to want to pretend. It is the general rule, yes, but there is an important circumstantial caveat permitting it.

If a Social Justice Warrior decides to use the untoward tactics of coercive social or economic pressure in the name of politics -- then I get to use force against him. He's declared his own Rules of Engagement; he cannot weep (and Allah should not weep on his behalf) to see those Rules of Engagement followed as regards conduct directed towards him.

As AllahPundit's new schtick seems to be to endlessly lecture actual conservatives about their supposed departure from longstanding conservative beliefs, I hope he'll bother himself to look up what Reagan and almost every other real conservative had to say about the efficacy of Unilateral Disarmament.

You know -- since he wants to be totally consistent in his conservative principles and all.

I guess "politics" just comes down to which Tribe you feel kinship with and which you hate, and we're seeing a realignment of many as far as which Tribe they now are looking to defend, and which they're looking to attack.

And it's very possible Grubhub's action is illegal in some jurisdictions. In some states, an employer can fire someone (or strongly suggest he self-deport, as it were) for his political beliefs.

But while employers may terminate employees for political opinions they don't like, they can't do so in others, where such conduct is considered illegal and creates the basis of a lawsuit, as several lawyers active on Twitter pointed out. Read this string of tweets from employment lawyer Popehat in reverse order (bottom to top):

And Kurt Schlicter, who doesn't mind making some money off the pain of a Social Justice Warrior Gone Wild:

The only good news for this Mahoney or whatever guy is that he totally does Not look like the sort of still-angry-about-high-school nasty geek who leaps at any little chance to exert power over others because he's still smarting over the powerlessness he's felt most of his life.

Oh wait. On second thought, I guess there's no good news here.

* Oh -- and I also encourage a total boycott (or as much as people can manage) against the media and all affiliated industries. They are now simply the Democrat Party, Entertainment Division. I don't patronize the Democrat Party and I try, to the extent possible, to avoid patronizing the media.

posted by Ace at 01:47 PM

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