I've been at my current job for five years now. For the last three of those years, I've had a Republican boss. His behavior was usually civil, if a little condescending. But since the election of President Obama and the rise of the Teabaggers, he's grown more and more resentful of those who think differently from him. Apparently feeling helpless against the general progressive movement in America, he has recently decided to take his frustration out on the Liberals working for him.
Join me below the fold for a blue-collar look at Republican reactionism.
I work in a distribution center for a domestic retail chain. We are divided into several departments, as you would find in any such place. My particular department consisted of five people (not including the supervisor), three of whom are Liberal Progressives. My supervisor was a die-hard Conservative who would routinely copy us on inflammatory anti-Liberal emails he was receiving from outside friends and other supervisors at the facility. He would tease us about being "tree-hugging bleeding-heart liberals." He would play clips of Limbaugh and Beck and laugh in our presence. We would shake our heads and laugh about him later in the breakroom. Sadly, we didn't do more. During the run-up to the last presidential election, he was convinced that McCain would win simply because he was "the real American." We three Liberals proudly wore our Obama T-shirts every Tuesday until Election Day, causing our supervisor to scowl and grumble; we were heartened that no one in management told us we couldn't wear them. Also understand that the supervisor in question comes from money, a fact that he would often flaunt in various annoying ways to the rest of us. He was an ass, but at least he was, for the most part, a tolerable ass. But we Liberals recently learned that he wasn't as tolerant of us.
As the Conservatives increased their inflammatory media rhetoric over this past year, our supervisor felt confident enough to tease us mercilessly about Obama's "missing birth certificate," about how "health care was gonna fail," and about how the election of Scott Brown in Massachusettes was a precursor to "what was coming in November." We Liberals found ourselves on the defensive much of the time, but--knowing we were right--mostly we just shrugged him off as being bitter. We never realized how bitter he truly was.
He was bitter enough to have all the Liberals in his department transferred to other departments.
I was the first to go, perhaps because I was the most reasoned and reasonable among us Liberals. My schedule changed abruptly, causing stress to my family (like having to shell out another $50 a week for our daughter to attend an after-school program to cover my new work hours, and even taking her out of her beloved basketball practices because I now get home too late to take her).
We three Liberals didn't realize what was happening at first. When I moved to my new position, someone let me in on "what was really going on": that my old supervisor was ridding his department of all those who didn't agree with his politics. I was told there was a "hit list," and only the names of we three Liberals were on it. I thought, Could that be true? I decided to bide my time, see what would happen.
The other two Liberals were moved out shortly thereafter; within a month, we were all completely out of his sight. Our old jobs are now occupied by another Conservative Republican, an Ayn Rand groupie and a dim blonde who doesn't follow politics at all. It's small consolation that our once-lauded department is now in complete disarray. May it continue to be so.
I've looked into the discriminatory nature of these moves. Sadly, his ass seems to be covered: he had argued that the other departments to which we were moved "really needed us," and management has no reason to believe that there were any ulterior motives on his part, political or otherwise. It was all just a coincidence, they say, that the three Liberals in his department--and only those three--were moved out. And besides that, political persuasion is not a "protected" demographic; in other words, we have no grounds on which to argue discrimination.
Honestly, my new situation is not terrible. My family is adjusting to my new schedule. I am looking for another job, but in the meantime I shall endeavor to take my new team to the same heights to which I took my previous one. But that my old Conservative supervisor felt compelled to rid his immediate environment of anyone who didn't agree with him I find repugnant, childish and unnecessary. (But what should I have expected? He is a Republican, after all.)
The real point here is that Conservatives and Teabaggers don't have to throw bricks at Democratic office windows, don't have to cut the gas lines of political opponents' homes, don't have to leave threatening phone messages on Congressional voicemails. They can take out their frustrations on everyday Liberals such as us.
So if you have been or are being harrassed by a Conservative at work, I suggest you bring it someone's attention, if possible. If we Liberals had established a history of this supervisor's predjudicial behavior, we might have had a case against him; as it stands, our complaints look like mere sour grapes on our part.
Liberals and Progressives, guard yourselves. It's not just the politicians with targets on their heads.