Opinion of employer firing employee for participating in Trump DC protest without violating the law

[Badger]

I am generally opposed the concept of employment-at-will. With that in mine, after firing said employee I would gladly argue to any administrative review board that the fact she believed in a Nigerian prince email scam level conspiracy theory about the election being stolen calls into SERIOUS question our ability to trust her judgment going forward, even if she hadn't made a boneheaded mistake YET.

Likewise, her association in a protest heavily populated not just by conservatives or even hardcore Trump cultists, but with more than a smattering of overt white supremacist and anti-semites, plus a likely majority of qanon conspiracy theorists - - which is describing them quite charitably-- what's fundamentally disrupt the workplace of reasonable expectations of other employees having to work with her, as well as the reputation of our business for having such a person work there.

I'm sorry, but I can't begin to buy into the fake dichotomy that this is essentially no different than a red State employer firing someone pretending an anti-war rally in 2003. This is more akin for terminating someone for attending a KKK cross burning, even if she didn't actually light the match.

[Badger]

49 states are at-will employment states. Legally they can be fired for any reason that isn’t a protected class violation.

Which is the lone remaining state that actually has some good employment laws? 

Montana.

Given its political leanings that is even more surprising. Good for Montana being the only sensible state!

Montana has a history of left-leaning “prairie populism”, with Jon Tester as perhaps the last remaining vestige of that ideal in power.

Plus active unionization. Still, I'm surprised that even more pro-union and Democratic states like New York or Massachusetts haven't followed suit.

[Badger]

If their job requires them to operate autonomously from authority and engage in critical thinking, going to a "stop the steal" protest would seem to be strong indicators against those skills in both regards.

Also

If the employee's actions being there (regardless of "where exactly" the employee was) is causing a huge distraction (problems) to running of the business, then the employee should be let-go.

If you look at the percentages of people who believe in moronic conspiracy theories about the moon landing, the Holocaust and so on, you’ll find this principle unsustainable. There are a lot of people who are capable of doing decent jobs while failing to engage their brains in politics - in fact, the vast majority of people do this, albeit to a lesser extent than Qanoners in most cases.

Your Holocaust denier analogy is actually fairly spot-on. And whereas no reasonable employee of a business would expect their co-workers to all be of the same political party, nor should any customer being serviced by an employee recently expect that employee to share their General political Outlook, the same cannot be said pretty reasonable black or Jewish coworker or employee dealing with a customer who is a Neo-Nazi.

I realize, as apologists for the Lynch Mob remind us, that gee whiz maybe they're not entirely terrible people because not ALL of them we're overtly neo-nazis and racists Even though this was a crowd where more than a handful of individuals comfortably Associated wearing 6 M we and Camp Auschwitz t-shirts, feeling perfectly welcome and at home, and unapologetically called Black Capitol police officers the n word, according to the officer's, more times in one day than they'd been called in their entire lives. The distinction whether she was among the substantial Cadre of white supremacist and neo-nazis in the crowd, or merely happily marching alongside said Cadre of neo-nazis joined in a common goal of undermining the basic Notions of our democracy based on pure unadulterated internet b******* that no person with an ounce of sense would seriously believe....

Well, what more do I need to say? If you can't see the clear and convincing distinction here, no amount of words or logic will help you see it.

[Badger]

If their job requires them to operate autonomously from authority and engage in critical thinking, going to a "stop the steal" protest would seem to be strong indicators against those skills in both regards.

Also

If the employee's actions being there (regardless of "where exactly" the employee was) is causing a huge distraction (problems) to running of the business, then the employee should be let-go.

If you look at the percentages of people who believe in moronic conspiracy theories about the moon landing, the Holocaust and so on, you’ll find this principle unsustainable. There are a lot of people who are capable of doing decent jobs while failing to engage their brains in politics - in fact, the vast majority of people do this, albeit to a lesser extent than Qanoners in most cases.

Agreed.

I found your examples amusing as I once had a colleague who was convinced the moon landing was faked along with a host of other conspiracy theories, yet was also one of the more competent Chartered Accountants in the office. Turns out his ridiculous opinions didn't inhibit his critical thinking skills or ability to work autonomously in accountancy. Surprising I know. Similarly Ben Carson believed all sorts of weird stuff, but that didn't prevent him from doing all those brain surgeries successfully.

The notion that being laughably wrong in one area renders one unfit to work in a thinking profession is one of the more bizarre takes that crops up on Atlas from time to time. I think it betrays a certain lack of real world experience. People are weird and complicated, and often don't fit to our little psephological boxes.  I think we're all better off for it.

And what would you say when your wacko conspiracy theorist accountant closely associated with a suddenly large organization chock-full of Holocaust deniers and white supremacist as well?

The distinction here is between someone having eccentric views, versus those that are at least closely aligned, if not fundamentally entrenched within, hate groups espousing White supremacy and anti-Semitism.

You know what is a really good measurement of whether or not you crossed a line between so-called political speech and involvement and a hate group? Nazis. If you look to your left, or look and look to your right, and you see Nazis, you're on notice that you are on the wrong side of humanity, Endust have no grounds to complain when the bulk of humanity expels you from its midst.

[Badger]

49 states are at-will employment states. Legally they can be fired for any reason that isn’t a protected class violation.

After all my years reading about American society and trying to make sense of its politics, this still does my head in.

Weak unions and pro-capitalist culture.

[Badger]

I suppose the equivalent would be some employee who is an antifa anarchist who joins other antifa for a nighttime rally where a significant portion of their crowd other than her go burn down a police station even if she is far away by that time. I'm still not sure that believing some tanky leftist ideology Rises to the level of full on divorced from reality belief Trump's election victory was stolen by mysteriously unprovable fraud, but I guess it's at least somewhat close.

Before answering the question, does anyone disagree that this is a good analogy? Genuine inquiry, as I'm not entirely certain.