Politics

Peter Thiel And The Undecided Trump Voter

It's been one hell of a 2016 for former lawyer, entrepreneur and Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.

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Peter ThielIt’s been one hell of a 2016 for former lawyer, entrepreneur and Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.

My guess, based on zero data, is that, had I mentioned Peter Thiel one year ago, only a handful of readers would have recognized his name. And, had I told you that he was one of the founders of Paypal and the first investor in Facebook (he’s even portrayed briefly in The Social Network), my guess, again based on zero data, is that your opinion of him would have instantly improved. “Tell us more about this Thiel,” you would say.

Fast forward a year later, and add Thiel’s funded lawsuit against Gawker (the online publisher that outed Thiel for being a homosexual) plus his open support for Donald Trump, and he has become nothing less than a social pariah — but one with better name recognition. How unpopular has his politics made him? Well, Mark Zuckerberg is getting flack for not removing Thiel from Facebook’s board. When I Googled Peter Thiel Sunday morning, the search engine returned the following headline on The LA Times:

Facebook won’t dump billionaire Peter Thiel from its board because it cares about ‘diversity’

And, not to be outdone, there was this from Wired

No, Facebook, ‘Diversity’ Doesn’t Explain Your Support of Peter Thiel

Zuckerberg isn’t alone. Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator (the early stage fund behind Reddit, Airbnb and Dropbox, not to mention a slew of legal tech companies like Ross and Casetext) felt compelled to write an essay explaining why Y Combinator wasn’t parting ways with Peter Thiel. On Twitter, Altman says he and Y Combinator founder Paul Graham have both contributed more this election cycle than Thiel (presumably to Clinton, Sanders or both) but that doesn’t seem to be cutting it with folks in Silicon Valley. They want to see Thiel suffer for daring to participate in democracy (although, to be frank, I’m not sure you can make someone worth billions of dollars suffer).

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I’m sure some people, including many on the Left, were happy to see Altman and Zuckerberg not cut ties publicly with Thiel over his Trump support. But I, for one, do not understand why it required an essay, much less a Tweet storm. So Thiel gave money to Trump. Pardon my language, but who gives a f@#%? Is democracy now so frowned upon that it requires an apology? I understand that Clinton is a fund raising machine, but it she the only one allowed to collect contributions? Personally speaking, I have not one but three investors who have made significant contributions to Clinton in both 2008 and 2016; one that I know of has contributed a less sizable sum to Trump.

So what?

If folks on the Left want to avoid the North American version of Brexit, they ought to proceed with caution, because this kind of silence-the-other-side strategy is likely to get what I call the “undecided Trump voter” to come out and vote. Pure undecided is a thing of the past. Today, we know everything there is to know and more about the two candidates. I know how Trump picks up women (yuck) and I’ve read dozens of Clinton’s private emails. What more could you possibly need at this point to make your decision?

Undecided Trump voters (you know what let’s just call them “UTVs”) aren’t actually undecided. They will not vote Clinton under any circumstances. What they haven’t yet decided is whether or not they will vote at all. Many UTVs simply cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump for any number of reasons; for some, it’s his affiliation with the Alt-right. They want Clinton to lose, but they don’t want voting for Trump on their conscience.

I know this because I have many friends who are UTVs. They are not uneducated rednecks and racists — they are college grads with advanced degrees, many of whom have successful careers in law, finance, medicine and tech. Most, but not all, live in the coastal cities. Yes, they know all about Trump’s personality and character; he was not their first choice, or their fourth, fifth or sixth. Perhaps one of the best known UTVs is Harvard Law grad and conservative pundit Ben Shapiro. Everyday for over a year, he has ripped into Trump on his podcast, a move that subjected Shapiro to an onslaught of online abuse from the Alt-right. Despite pleas from the good little Trumpkins, Shapiro has refused to endorse Trump, while — and this is key — admitting that he feels conflicted on a daily basis.

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What will push the UTVs from “conflicted” to “Screw it, I’m voting Trump” is this “Shut your mouth (and your pocket book) or else” behavior that we’re witnessing in Silicon Valley surrounding Peter Thiel. This is not a Silicon Valley phenomenon — the shutting-up of others is taking place on Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else. This is the political version of mashing on a pimple hoping that it will pop. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it lands you with a red, mangled chin on prom night.

Careful America. Every time you tell Trump supporters how awful and stupid they are, or suggest blacklisting Peter Thiel, another UTV gets its wings.

Zach Abramowitz is a former Biglaw associate and currently CEO and co-founder of ReplyAll. You can follow Zach on Twitter (@zachabramowitz) or reach him by email at zach@replyall.me.

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