It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.
This week’s fail was brought to you by every CEO who has ever encouraged their employees to vote a certain way, implicitly or otherwise. It’s become a trend in this election, with CEOs with known preferences for former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) and other conservative candidates leading the charge. In this example, Dave Robertson, the president of Koch Industries – yes, that Koch – sends a “voter information packet” to 45,000 people working for the company’s Georgia-Pacific subsidiary, listing candidates endorsed by KOCHPAC who are “the most market-based and willing to support economic freedom for the benefit of society as a whole” in their respective races.
Of course, that’s not quite as bad as the mailer from David Siegel, head of Westgate Resorts, who warns that new taxes will force him to lay off his workers. (This is what his house looks like. I’m just saying.) Or the mailer from Arthur Allen of ASG Software Solutions, who fears that his company will no longer be able to “stay independent” if President Obama is re-elected. What does that mean? Does he think Obama will nationalize his company? If he did, I couldn’t imagine that the political propaganda coming down from the new head office would be all that different from this stuff, except for the names.
Now I don’t expect any of these CEOs to have the resources or the know-how to find out how their employees end up voting, unless they announce it somehow. (The CEO in this book might. But I’m not going to elaborate here.) That’s the problem. While it’s generally frowned upon to discuss politics at work, depending on the workplace, what employee would even think of it after reading mailers like these? If you were in their position, you’d probably be worried about some kind of retribution.
But it’s not illogical to worry about retribution whether you keep your mouth shut or not. We’ve already established why it makes little sense to blame Obama alone for the threat of massive tax hikes. But is it really as simple as 1. taxes go up and 2. people get laid off? Surely CEOs who rose to preside over companies these size are smart enough to think up some ideas for avoiding those, right? Anyone? Anyone?
No wonder it’s so easy to turn former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) into a caricature. The people who carry his water already are caricatures – a small but powerful horde of Bill Lumberghs. “Mmmm, yeeeah . . . we’ve got some new taxes that have been imposed on us, so I’m just gonna go ahead and do some housecleaning around here. M’kay?”
