New Republic: Media Has ‘Failed to Register’ Silicon Valley’s Shifting Politics

In an article for the New Republic last week, two writers noted that the mainstream media has failed to register the shift in Silicon Valley from libertarianism to leftism.

The article, titled, “The Stark Political Divide Between Tech CEOs and Their Employees,” questioned whether Silicon Valley was “growing away from its liberal and libertarian origins.”
“As we usually understand them, workers are not ‘creatives,’ inspired by a higher calling. Most people are workers by necessity, and sell their labor to make a living. By calling themselves workers, members of the new movement are staking a claim to this common identity,” declared Moira Weigel and Ben Tarnoff in their evaluation of the difference between Big Tech executives and employees. “This common identity, in turn, has enabled tech workers to build alliances across roles with the shuttle drivers, security guards, janitors, and cafeteria staff who make up the industry’s ‘invisible workforce.’”

“These members of the new tech worker movement don’t sound like the ‘hippie yuppies’ of the Californian Ideology. They are embracing a more collective, worker-driven politics—one that owes less to Ayn Rand than it does to Eugene Debs,” Weigel and Tarnoff claimed. “Until recently, media outlets have failed to register this shift, because they have let tech executives speak for the industry as a whole.”