Sure - the USA Government wants to sign a deal to buy your software. But a group of people start a divisive email thread on how the USA Gov is a racist, white supremacist, sexist, imperialist government and the company should boycott them.

Or that Israel wants to sign a deal but a thread is started that we should boycott and divest from the the Zionist murderers of Palestine.

Or the Republican Party wants to sign a deal - where do we start?! Oh boy. Best keep that contract under wraps!

Or a police department wants to sign a deal but a thread launches that is certain that police are racist and doing a deal with them is harmful to PoC, etc. They must be defunded.

Or China wants to sign a deal but <fill in the blank>

Or Planned Parenthood wants to sign a deal but they murder babies.

Or the lol Catholic Church signs a deal lol....

Outside of business deals - “the company must take a position with BLM or else it is supports racism”.

Or “the leadership needs more X”

Or whatever. There’s no end to this and there’s no ends to the examples.

HERE IS WHY THIS IS GOOD POLICY: At some point, there is a good chance a reactionary party will take office. It will be charismatic and leverage done overreach on the left. It will feel empowering for a large group of people to be heard and the media, as they always do eventually, will fall in line with the reactionaries. This will not be good. And suddenly open discussion on “what’s right to do politically” will be awful. We need to stop that from happening. But the longer a small group of far left bullies dictates “née norms” the more good people will stay silent until the day that charismatic leader comes into view. Trump was not that leader and still got 70m votes. Someone that is an actual reactionary and not just a buffoon will come up and will seem like a good idea to a lot of people. And if the norm is that popular political opinion should be infused into everything then good luck.

I appreciate that you provided a lot of examples. For each example, I’m wondering if you think it shouldn’t be discussed because the debate itself isn’t important to the company (e.g. “it doesn’t matter whether the US government is a white supremacist government, we are doing this deal with them either way”), or because the company has taken a stance on the debate (e.g. “the US government is not a white supremacist government, and we are doing this deal with them”).

If your reason is the former, I’m curious how far you would take that. Is there any conceivable case where the company should not do business with some organization or government because of political issues? And if your reason is the latter, then shouldn’t the company try to be upfront (at least internally among employees) where it stands on these issues?

I believe it is up to the share holders and that’s it. If the share holders don’t want to do business with a certain group of people, it is their prerogative. They can vote. Employees can quit.

And yes I don’t think the debate is relevant to a business organization. The elected government decides who business can be and which business can be conducted. If you don’t like it then by all means, petition your representatives. But please do it on your own time.

You can do business with the Catholic Church and Planned Parenthood. If you’re keen to then use your earnings to crush one org or the other.