
Google Donated To A Senator Who Voted Against Gay Conversion Therapy Ban - sna1l
https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1208200736862982144
======
leftyted
Google is not a group of people who decided to associate based on their shared
values. That was always bullshit, and I'm unsure why anyone took it seriously.
If you fell for it, that's on you.

Google should never have talked about "pride" or "our shared values". It's
very clear that they inherited that stuff from universities, where garbled
nonsense about "safety," "this is our home," and "no place for hate" have
become institutionalized. Mature companies led by adults know to avoid this
minefield.

All of that aside, the attitude evinced by this post is counterproductive.
Politics is about persuasion. If you want to persuade (and not just preach to
the converted), you have to understand the other perspective. If all you can
do is dismiss people as "indefensible," you don't understand them, and you
won't convince them. You'll come off as nasty, entitled, arrogant, and
ideological. You know, the kind of person who commits code to push their
political agenda, spies on their coworkers, or spams some lawyer they
disapprove of with emails.

~~~
dom2
I assume to tell the gay people in your life that you would rather they didn't
exist? When you support money flowing to politicians who support policies like
conversion camps, the message you are sending is clear. If Google or others
want to convince politicians who support backwards policies to change their
ways, they can still engage with them, but there is absolutely no need to
financially support then.

~~~
imustbeevil
> I assume to tell the gay people in your life that you would rather they
> didn't exist?

That's a weird assumption to make.

What I would assume is that the Senator has any other position that Google
finds more profitable than an alternative Senator. It would be kind of crazy
to think Google is directly supporting conversion therapy, or that anyone on
this forum would.

~~~
dom2
These political donations have externalities beyond the single policy that a
person, Google, or any company may be donating for. If Google absolutely had
to donate to one of several politicians and this was the lesser evil, that
would be understandable. This is not the case. Companies don't need to donate
to have political influence: Apple doesn't and they do fine.

Supporting a politician financially who also happens to support conversion
camps in the end is still supporting all those policies, whether or not that
was the initial intent.

------
idlewords
I've been doing Twitter threads of Google's political giving for a while; they
donate to a large number of terrible people. I try to single out politicians
with records that are antithetical to basic values Google employees share, or
that the company advertises (like its ostentatious committment to #pride), not
just things I politically disagree with.

To head off some comments that always come up:

1\. Like most corporate PACs, Google gives fairly evenly to politicians in
both parties. I don't think donations to Democrats "cancel out" donations to
indefensible figures like Scalise, or Nunes, any more than giving money to the
NAACP cancels out a donation to the KKK.

2\. Google's giving is not indiscriminate, but tactical and highly targeted.
In particular, they don't just give to everyone across the board like the
sugar lobby.

3\. The dollar figures are small because they are capped by statute. At most,
Google can give one politician $10,000 in an election cycle. This is
absolutely dwarfed in size by Google's D.C. lobbying operation, which can't
contribute directly to campaigns but finds many ways to be influential.

4\. This money is donated by employees who opt in, but is allocated by the
company. Googlers have no input into the targeting and timing of these
donations; it's decided by the office of public policy.

5\. An American corporation can do fine without a PAC. Apple and IBM don't
have one. Microsoft won a giant Pentagon cloud computing contract while its
political giving was suspended.

With that said, some further threads:

November 2019:
[https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1197253535735267328](https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1197253535735267328)

August 2019:
[https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1164031478897901573](https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1164031478897901573)

June 2019:
[https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1152245502361997314](https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1152245502361997314)

April 2019:
[https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1119751992597835776](https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1119751992597835776)

~~~
blfr
_This money is donated by employees who opt in_

Why do they opt in? If they wanted to donate to a politician, they always can.
Why this setup?

~~~
kenhwang
Anonymity? Instead of everyone knowing the exact person working at Google
donated to a cause/politician, you only know there might be an employee at
Google that did.

~~~
idlewords
The employee donors are a matter of public record; they're listed in each FEC
filing.

------
bestnameever
What else does this senator stand for? Does it even matter? Honestly, I'm not
really sure if Google should be basing their donations on just one issue.

------
SomaticPirate
$2,500 hardly seems a large donation from a behemoth like Google. It’s fairly
common practice in the Fortune 50s to donate to any politician who might even
have a glance at any potential legislation that could affect them.

This would be more impactful if Google was one of the only large companies
that donated.

~~~
idlewords
The donations are capped by law at $10K, so they are all "small" in that
sense.

------
bobbytran
The ex-Mozilla CEO was shit-canned for much less. I'm surprised so many here
on HN support this.

~~~
ddxxdd
Try to look at the forest instead of any individual tree.

The ex-Mozilla CEO donated to an anti-gay marriage SuperPAC; the entire
existence of that SuperPAC was 100% dedicated to opposition to gay marriage.

Google donated to a candidate that has voted on hundreds of different bills;
less than 1% of his votes are under scrutiny in this Twitter thread.

~~~
bobbytran
Do you have proof that the SuperPACs only purpose was to oppose gay marriage?

He donated a very small amount of personal money as opposed to an entire
company making donations.

~~~
BrendanEich
See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee#Sup...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee#Super_PACs)
and [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colbert-gets-a-super-pac-so-
wha...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colbert-gets-a-super-pac-so-what-are-
they/). Citizens United (2010) after SpeechNow (2009) created Super-PACs. Prop
8 was on the CA ballot in 2008. So the comment above is technically wrong to
use "Super-PAC", which was coined in 2010, but it sounds scarier than PAC. The
double standard and special pleading for Google stink.

------
derp_dee_derp
Who cares? Google and every other large corporation donate to all the
candidates covering the entire spectrum of politics.

It's a hedge bet strategy focused in risk management: the hope is to have
influence over whoever so happens to be politically popular at any given time.

~~~
idlewords
You're wrong twice within the first twenty words. Google doesn't donate to all
candidates, and there are U.S. corporations of its size that don't make
political contributions at all.

~~~
twojacobtwo
Could you name one or two of those that are Google's (Alphabet's) size don't
contribute? That seems highly unlikely in the US.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Could you name one or two of those that are Google's (Alphabet's) size don't
> contribute?

All of them, including Google, because they are legally prohibited from it.

Google's PAC donates, but not with Google funds, because corporate PAC
donations can't come from corporate treasury funds.

There are some large companies that lobby but don't operate PACs (IBM and
Apple for instance.) It's debatable whether this is better or not, but it's
certainly a different shape of political engagement.

