by Debra Heine
As Election Day draws near, Democrat business owners and politicians are increasingly flexing their muscles to push their politics into peoples’ faces and punish those who have opposing views. There have been multiple reports in the past year about Trump supporters being fired for expressing their support for the president.
In the past couple of weeks, two more Trump supporters have been fired and a CEO of a major software company has sent a mass email to millions of customers telling them to vote for Joe Biden.
A Republican music publicist in Nevada was recently fired by email after she posted pictures of herself at a Trump rally onto social media, the Federalist reported.
When Danielle Reiss (pictured above) attended President Trump’s campaign rally in Henderson, Nevada, on Sep. 13, she had no idea it would cost her job.
Reiss is a music publicist partnered with Pop Off, a Boston-based advertising agency that connects publicists like Reiss with artists. She signed a contract in August under which Pop Off would refer artists to her, and she would give the agency a percentage of the money she earned from helping referred artists with publicity. In early September, Pop Off connected her with her first client.
But on Sept. 13, Reiss went to a campaign rally for President Trump. Afterward she posted on social media a photo of herself with a “Make America Great Again” sign and the caption: “I saw our president speak in Anaheim, California in 2016. Yesterday, I watched him speak in Las Vegas, Nevada. God Bless America.”
Four days after the rally, Reiss says she received an email from Pop Off announcing the agency’s plans to terminate their business relationship as soon as their contract ended.
“We saw your latest Instagram post in which you held a ‘Make America Great Again’ poster,” the email said. “From this, we infer that you support the policies and ideologies of Donald Trump’s administration, which blatantly undermine the values we uphold at Pop Off.”
The email, which appears to be from Pop Off President and Chief Financial Officer Ben Silvers, adds that the agency will continue working with Reiss until February 2021, but after that “we will be terminating our professional relationship with you and will cease all partnership activities.”
Earlier this month, a police chief in Lancaster, Pennsylvania was reportedly forced to resign after his wife posted comments on Facebook praising President Trump.
Mayor Danene Sorace told Chief Jarrad Berkihiser to resign because his wife posted comments on facebook saying she planned to vote for President Trump because of his support for law enforcement, said John Fiorill, the previous president of the local Fraternal Order of Police said.
“This was an unjust situation that he was placed in, a clear violation of his rights,” Fiorill said. “He was advised by the mayor that she wanted his resignation, based on those statements made on Facebook, not by Chief Berkihiser, but by Chief Berkihiser’s wife.”
Chief Berkihiser went to the FOP for help and was advised to retire under his conditions.
“He retired under his conditions, not the conditions of the mayor, not a termination. That’s exactly what he wanted to avoid and he wanted to avoid that turmoil,” Fiorill said.
Fiorill believes the mayor, who is a Democrat, made the decision based on politics.
“Which in my opinion is totally unjust and unfair, not only to Jarrad Berkihiser, but it’s an insult to law enforcement officers because Jarred dedicated his life and his career to serving the citizens of Lancaster city,” Fiorill said.
In another apparent abuse of power, the CEO of a software management company decided to tell all 10 million customers on the company’s mailing list who to vote for.
Expensify CEO David Barrett sent out the mass email earlier this week urging his customers to vote for Joe Biden for president because “anything less than a vote for Biden is a vote against democracy.”
“I know you don’t want to hear this from me. But we are facing an unprecedented attack on the foundations of democracy itself,” CEO David Barrett wrote. “If you are a U.S. citizen, anything less than a vote for Biden is a vote against democracy.”
In his half-baked letter, Barrett attempted to make a business case for voting Trump out of office.
“At every layer, democracy is our core competitive advantage—both as a company, and as a nation,” he wrote. “But that advantage is only as strong as the clarity of our rules and the fairness of their application. Any attempt to disrupt the rules or apply them unfairly is a direct threat to the strength of our company, and the strength of our nation.”
Barrett claimed that he felt “obligated” to take this drastic political step.
“As CEO of this business, it’s my job to plot a course through any storm—and all evidence suggests that another 4 (or as Trump has hinted—8, or more?) years of Trump leadership will damage our democracy to such an extent, I’m obligated on behalf of shareholders to take any action I can to avoid it. I am confident our democracy (and Expensify) can survive a Biden presidency. I can’t say the same about Trump. It’s truly as simple as that,” he argued.
He went on to accuse the Trump administration of trying to suppress voter turnout and of making false claims about voter fraud.
“I wouldn’t be sending this email if this election were just about ‘normal issues’ — taxes, legislative priorities, healthcare, etc.,” Barrett wrote. “But it isn’t. This election is a referendum on what limits, if any, we place on our elected leaders to govern us in a fair and representative way. This election will decide if widespread voter suppression is an acceptable governing tactic.”
Not surprisingly, many recipients of the letter did not appreciate Barrett’s unsolicited lecture.
Daniel M. Rothschild, the Executive Director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, responded to Barrett with his own letter accusing the CEO of violating the trust of his customers.
“David, last night you chose to violate the trust your company has built up and politicize your company,” he wrote at the letter’s end. “That is, I suppose, your right. But this country cannot endure without trust and apolitical spaces.”
Another twitter user said: “Our entire company just received this email from Expensify. How dare you use our email addresses for your personal political action! Are you giving our contact information to Democratic organizations?”
Micah Jones suggested that it seemed like a bad business decision to alienate half of your customers over politics.
Other customers were similarly disgusted.
“This is horrible,” wrote Twitter user @MarginalResult. “It means the bleeding of politics into every personal and business transaction in the country. If you think this will end well, you have deluded yourself.”
“Our company just received the same email,” Dan Fitzpatrick tweeted. “Completely over the line. I don’t care what an individual’s political beliefs are or how they vote. However, I care very much about a vendor telling its customers who to vote for. No place in business for emails like this one.”
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Debra Heine reports for American Greatness.
Photo “Danielle Reiss” by Danielle Reiss Instagram.
