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After President Trump's most recent rhetoric about Charlottesville inflamed even more criticism, a handful of GOP lawmakers, including Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), are criticizing Trump directly, while others stay silent. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

President Trump on Thursday assumed the role of leading spokesman for the racially charged cause of preserving Confederate statues on public grounds, couching his defense in historical terms that thrilled his core supporters and signaled his intent to use cultural strife as a political weapon just days after deadly violence in Virginia.

Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments, Trump wrote on Twitter.

So foolish! he added, bemoaning efforts in several municipalities to take down Confederate tributes.

Trumps celebration of monuments from a dark chapter of American history sparked wide debate over its consequences for his embattled presidency and the nations civic fabric, as well as over the challenges facing both parties as he delves into the culture wars.

A chorus of Republicans expressed alarm over Trumps words and their potential cost with voters. But Trumps allies inside and outside the White House, most notably White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, argued that Trumps pronouncements would rally his political base while also serving as a welcome distraction from the policy stumbles and investigations that have hobbled the administration.

Democrats reacted with horror at Trumps enthusiasm for memorials to the Confederacy more than 150 years after the end of the Civil War and just five days after white nationalist and neo-Nazi protests in Charlottesville left one woman dead and at least 19 more people injured.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and others harshly condemned Trumps statements and called for the removal of Confederate statues from the halls of the U.S. Capitol. Some veteran Democrats, meanwhile, said Trumps remarks seemed aimed at rousing his base.

Hes hitting a raw and ugly political nerve around a certain segment of the electorate, said Democratic consultant Robert Shrum. But thats not enough to sustain him to get things done as president or get reelected.

Trumps comments came as he also ratcheted up his rhetoric on the threat of Muslim extremists in the wake of a deadly van attack Thursday in Barcelona. Taking to Twitter, Trump recycled a discredited tale that he had promoted during the 2016 campaign, asserting that Gen. John J. Pershing had ordered that bullets be dipped in pigs blood and used to execute Islamic terrorists in the Philippines. Historians have widely debunked the story as a fabrication.

Inside the White House, Trump advisers said the president is being guided chiefly by his own instincts, chafing at critical news coverage of his handling of the Charlottesville protests and charges of racism.

Bannon a hard-line nationalist whose position has been threatened in recent days by his clashes with moderate colleagues and his blunt remarks to a liberal magazine has fiercely defended Trump in internal staff discussions, according to White House officials.

In an email to The Washington Post on Thursday, Bannon said Democrats do not understand Trump and underestimate his appeal.

President Trump asked if statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson should be removed since they owned slaves while speaking in New York on Aug. 15. (The Washington Post)

This past election, the Democrats used every personal attack, including charges of racism, against President Trump. He then won a landslide victory on a straightforward platform of economic nationalism, Bannon wrote. As long as the Democrats fail to understand this, they will continue to lose. But leftist elites do not value history, so why would they learn from history?

Others in Trumps orbit agree with him, believing there is a potential strategy in decrying identity politics and political correctness a message that resonates with his base. But even within Trumps circle, there are those who wonder whether Trump has gone too far and risks alienating some of the swing voters who voted for him last year with hope for change, not racial division.

He was saying that this political correctness could lead to trying to rewrite American history. The problem is thats not the time to bring this up, said one Republican operative and unofficial White House adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment. Now is the time to lower the emotional temperature of the country.

Many Republican leaders and lawmakers cringed as the president tweeted, and they sought to distance themselves from the White House. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), a moderate, went so far as to call for Bannon to be fired.

Associates of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that Trump would be putting the partys already stalled legislative agenda at risk if he continued to carry the cause of defending Confederate statues.

Its a pretty tough transition from white supremacists arent so bad to lets do tax reform, Josh Holmes, a longtime McConnell ally, said in an interview.

But the concerns ran deeper than prospects on Capitol Hill. Some prominent Republicans said they were unsettled by the caustic nature of Trumps comments this week and what those remarks revealed about his ability to articulate positions on race and history that unite rather than divide the country.

What we want to see from our president is clarity and moral authority. And that moral authority is compromised when Tuesday happened, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the GOPs lone black senator, told VICE on Thursday, referring to a news conference in which Trump said both sides shared blame for the violence at the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has worked closely with Trump in the past, underscored the growing Republican unease when he told reporters Thursday that Trump has not demonstrated that he understands the character of this nation.

He has not demonstrated that he understands what has made this nation great and what it is today, and hes got to demonstrate the characteristics of a president who understands that. And without the things that I just mentioned happening, our nation is going to go through great peril, Corker said.

Anything less than complete & unambiguous condemnation of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK by the @POTUS is unacceptable. Period, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) wrote Thursday on Twitter.

Trump shrugged off the criticism. Earlier Thursday, he slammed Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) for their criticism of his leadership in the wake of the Charlottesville tragedy.

On Twitter, Trump called Flake WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate, and praised Flakes primary challenger.

McConnell responded with a tweet later in the day, calling Flake an excellent Senator and a tireless advocate for Arizona and our nation.

He has my full support, McConnell added.

There is little public polling over what to do with Confederate monuments. An NPR-PBS survey conducted Monday and Tuesday by Marist College found that 62percent of respondents said statues honoring Confederate leaders should remain as a historical symbol; 27percent said they should be removed because they are offensive to some people.

That poll found a large partisan divide: Republicans prefer to keep statues by 86percent to 6percent, while Democrats split 44percent for keeping them and 47percent for removing them. Among African Americans in the survey, 44percent favored keeping them, and 40percent favored removal.

In his tweets Thursday, Trump appeared to equate Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, who commanded Southern forces in the Civil War to secede from the United States, with Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as potential targets of criticism because of Washington and Jeffersons status as slave owners an argument he first advanced at his Tuesday news conference.

You ... cant change history, but you can learn from it, he tweeted. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson whos next, Washington, Jefferson?

Charlottesville wasnt the first place that white supremacists had gathered recently to oppose the removal of a Confederate statue, but last weekend was the first rally marked by deadly violence. More rallies are planned for other cities as a show of force to pressure municipal officials into leaving Civil War symbols in place.

Trumps new enthusiasm on statues stands apart from his views last year. On the campaign trail, Trump said he agreed with the decision in 2015 by then-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to remove a Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds following the mass shooting by Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who killed nine African Americans at a black church in Charleston. Haley now serves as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

I would take it down, yes, Trump said at the time. I think they should put it in a museum and respect whatever it is you have to respect.

Democrats moved aggressively on Thursday to counter what they described as a disturbing turn.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Trumps tweets Thursday represented an attempt to divert attention away from the presidents refusal to unequivocally and full-throatedly denounce white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and other forms of bigotry.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, and a small group of Democrats called for a congressional resolution to censure Trump. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said he would seek to introduce articles of impeachment. Neither measure faces a chance of success in the GOP-controlled House.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) announced late Wednesday that he intends to introduce legislation after Congress reconvenes next month calling for the removal of at least a dozen statues of Confederate soldiers and politicians inside the U.S. Capitol.

That collection includes two statues selected by each state, and the presence of Confederate political and military leaders among them as well as other figures with well-known discriminatory views has previously attracted protests.

There is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or in places of honor across the country, Pelosi said.

A spokesman for Ryan said congressional Republicans would not intervene to remove the statues without the states consent.

These are decisions for those states to make, said Ryan spokesman Doug Andres.

Sean Sullivan, Ashley Parker and Scott Clement contributed to this report.

See original here:
Trump embraces culture war with call to preserve Confederate statues - Washington Post

With plans to protest outside Google's offices this weekend, conservatives are taking America's culture wars directly to Silicon Valley, a place that was long insulated from political rancor but is now one of the most important ideological battlegrounds.

The rallies were inspired by James Damore, the former Google engineer who was fired last week for posting a 10-page internal memo arguing that the lack of women in tech could be attributed to biological differences. His dismissal sparked an outcry from conservatives who say their opinions are being muzzled by liberal technology companies and led Damore to criticize his former company for promoting a "particularly intense echo chamber."

"The March on Google stands for free speech and the open discussion of ideas," wrote event organizer Jack Posobiec, a conservative media figure who pushed the "Pizzagate" and Seth Rich conspiracy theories and was recently retweeted by the president.

Posobiec, who did not respond to questions sent to his Facebook page, said the marches planned for Saturday are not "alt-right" events and that he wanted to avoid the violence and mayhem experienced in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend.

The Details

Protests are planned Saturday at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., and other company offices such as Venice, Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Seattle. It's unclear how many people are expected.

Google did not respond to a request for comment, and the Los Angeles Police Department said Tuesday that it had no information yet about a demonstration.

But the Mountain View Police Department confirmed a planned demonstration for two hours at Charleston Park across from Google headquarters. The department said organizers were not connected to Charlottesville participants.

"We want you to know that we are working with both Google and with the event planners to ensure the protest is a peaceful one," the department said in a statement.

Damore told CNBC that he is not involved with the marches, adding that "I don't support efforts to try to hurt Google directly."

Still, his memo pointed to the clash of ideas within the technology industry at a time when its products play an increasingly bigger role in the daily lives of Americans.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Snapchat and other social media occupy 5 1/2 hours of the average U.S. adult's week, according to Nielsen, a span that has grown sharply in recent years. And the online platforms' power to spread and enforce cultural values has become a matter of contention across the political spectrum.

Conservatives point to years of evidence of a liberal agenda in the tech industry. They've drawn comparisons between Damore's case and Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich, who stepped down a decade ago following outrage over his support of a ban on same-sex marriage.

More recently, right-wing activists say YouTube is filtering conservative videos so that they won't appear unless users toggle their settings to accept graphic or potentially offensive content.

Shifting Politics

The conditions are a far cry from just a few years ago, when technologists were thought of as political neophytes -- the descendants of a counterculture that turned hippies into billionaires like Steve Jobs. If there was a political streak in the valley, it tended to be libertarian.

But the 2016 presidential election demonstrated just how influential the region's platforms are to American public opinion.

Where would Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign have gone without the rabid support of smartphone-wielding millennials spreading #FeelTheBern?

And how long would Donald Trump's campaign have lasted without his supporters' memes and the candidate's personal Twitter account?

Jeremy Carl, a former tech worker who serves as a fellow at conservative think tank Hoover Institution, said the anger among his ideological peers stems from "egregious" actions taken by Google and other big tech companies.

Efforts to take down or stunt the growth of potentially offensive online publications have reached a "ridiculous" level, he said.

Despite Trump's victory last year with the aid of a fearsome social media strategy, conservatives accuse Facebook, Twitter and Google of censoring their points of view by suspending accounts and firing employees like Damore who speak out against diversity training.

"The recklessness of the industry and its partisan politics have brought us to this point. They have no credibility among the right to do self-regulation," said Carl, who has advocated for treating Google as a utility company that must provide a neutral service.

At stake is the future of news and information in a country where facts are so often viewed through a political lens. Control of these digital platforms, once thought to be apolitical, could swing the national conversation around culture and politics.

No Alternatives

What also irks critics is that there are few alternatives to Google and Facebook. So conservatives who don't like those companies' politics feel they have no choice but to keep using their services.

"Internet people brag about freedom of expression in the U.S. relative to what's available in China, but that's just not the case when you look at the Internet monopolies in the U.S.," said Ron Unz, a Palo Alto software entrepreneur who launched unsuccessful campaigns for California governor and English-only education.

"You're talking about something closer to modern totalitarianism," Unz added.

(By comparison, China tightly monitors discourse on its closed-off Internet, employing thousands of censors and trolls to promote the government's positions and stifle open dissent).

Unz said he thinks tech companies should be held to the same standards as the government when it comes to freedom of expression because of their market dominance.

"If the government is legally prohibited from censoring certain forms of speech, it seems wrong to allow Google to do what the government can't do," Unz said.

Uncertainty About the Agenda

It doesn't help either that tech companies operate in near secrecy -- driving suspicion that the Googles and Facebooks of the world are stifling conservative views with lines of hidden code.

"The "tech industry's point of view is embedded deep in the product, not announced on the packaging," wrote Ezra Klein, editor-in-chief of Vox. "Its biases are quietly built into algorithms, reflected in platform rules, expressed in code few of us can understand and fewer of us will ever read."

It's been difficult for Silicon Valley to adapt to the new political order. Many companies are at odds with conservative positions on immigration, climate change and sexual identity -- taking stances that seemed safely mainstream until recently.

Nonetheless, they've tried to appear more welcoming to President Trump and his supporters.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt, head of Google's parent company Alphabet, are among the big names that agreed to advise the president on his technology council.

Google has also tried to hire more conservatives for its lobbying and policy initiatives, and Facebook donated money to the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. The social network also replaced its news editors with an algorithm after conservatives said employees were suppressing right-wing content.

To be sure, Silicon Valley counts some conservatives and Trump supporters among its list of top entrepreneurs. None is more famous than Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and a billionaire venture capitalist, who spoke strongly in support of then-candidate Trump at the Republican National Convention last year. Thiel, despite running large investment funds, has become an outcast in some circles of the industry for his work with Trump.

2017 Los Angeles Times under contract with NewsEdge/Acquire Media. All rights reserved.

See the original post here:
Google Protests Bring Culture Wars to Silicon Valley - NewsFactor Network

With plans to protest outside Google's offices this weekend, conservatives are taking America's culture wars directly to Silicon Valley, a place that was long insulated from political rancor but is now one of the most important ideological battlegrounds.

The rallies were inspired by James Damore, the former Google engineer who was fired last week for posting a 10-page internal memo arguing that the lack of women in tech could be attributed to biological differences. His dismissal sparked an outcry from conservatives who say their opinions are being muzzled by liberal technology companies and led Damore to criticize his former company for promoting a "particularly intense echo chamber."

"The March on Google stands for free speech and the open discussion of ideas," wrote event organizer Jack Posobiec, a conservative media figure who pushed the "Pizzagate" and Seth Rich conspiracy theories and was recently retweeted by the president.

Posobiec, who did not respond to questions sent to his Facebook page, said the marches planned for Saturday are not "alt-right" events and that he wanted to avoid the violence and mayhem experienced in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend.

The Details

Protests are planned Saturday at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., and other company offices such as Venice, Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Seattle. It's unclear how many people are expected.

Google did not respond to a request for comment, and the Los Angeles Police Department said Tuesday that it had no information yet about a demonstration.

But the Mountain View Police Department confirmed a planned demonstration for two hours at Charleston Park across from Google headquarters. The department said organizers were not connected to Charlottesville participants.

"We want you to know that we are working with both Google and with the event planners to ensure the protest is a peaceful one," the department said in a statement.

Damore told CNBC that he is not involved with the marches, adding that "I don't support efforts to try to hurt Google directly."

Still, his memo pointed to the clash of ideas within the technology industry at a time when its products play an increasingly bigger role in the daily lives of Americans.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Snapchat and other social media occupy 5 1/2 hours of the average U.S. adult's week, according to Nielsen, a span that has grown sharply in recent years. And the online platforms' power to spread and enforce cultural values has become a matter of contention across the political spectrum.

Conservatives point to years of evidence of a liberal agenda in the tech industry. They've drawn comparisons between Damore's case and Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich, who stepped down a decade ago following outrage over his support of a ban on same-sex marriage.

More recently, right-wing activists say YouTube is filtering conservative videos so that they won't appear unless users toggle their settings to accept graphic or potentially offensive content.

Shifting Politics

The conditions are a far cry from just a few years ago, when technologists were thought of as political neophytes -- the descendants of a counterculture that turned hippies into billionaires like Steve Jobs. If there was a political streak in the valley, it tended to be libertarian.

But the 2016 presidential election demonstrated just how influential the region's platforms are to American public opinion.

Where would Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign have gone without the rabid support of smartphone-wielding millennials spreading #FeelTheBern?

And how long would Donald Trump's campaign have lasted without his supporters' memes and the candidate's personal Twitter account?

Jeremy Carl, a former tech worker who serves as a fellow at conservative think tank Hoover Institution, said the anger among his ideological peers stems from "egregious" actions taken by Google and other big tech companies.

Efforts to take down or stunt the growth of potentially offensive online publications have reached a "ridiculous" level, he said.

Despite Trump's victory last year with the aid of a fearsome social media strategy, conservatives accuse Facebook, Twitter and Google of censoring their points of view by suspending accounts and firing employees like Damore who speak out against diversity training.

"The recklessness of the industry and its partisan politics have brought us to this point. They have no credibility among the right to do self-regulation," said Carl, who has advocated for treating Google as a utility company that must provide a neutral service.

At stake is the future of news and information in a country where facts are so often viewed through a political lens. Control of these digital platforms, once thought to be apolitical, could swing the national conversation around culture and politics.

No Alternatives

What also irks critics is that there are few alternatives to Google and Facebook. So conservatives who don't like those companies' politics feel they have no choice but to keep using their services.

"Internet people brag about freedom of expression in the U.S. relative to what's available in China, but that's just not the case when you look at the Internet monopolies in the U.S.," said Ron Unz, a Palo Alto software entrepreneur who launched unsuccessful campaigns for California governor and English-only education.

"You're talking about something closer to modern totalitarianism," Unz added.

(By comparison, China tightly monitors discourse on its closed-off Internet, employing thousands of censors and trolls to promote the government's positions and stifle open dissent).

Unz said he thinks tech companies should be held to the same standards as the government when it comes to freedom of expression because of their market dominance.

"If the government is legally prohibited from censoring certain forms of speech, it seems wrong to allow Google to do what the government can't do," Unz said.

Uncertainty About the Agenda

It doesn't help either that tech companies operate in near secrecy -- driving suspicion that the Googles and Facebooks of the world are stifling conservative views with lines of hidden code.

"The "tech industry's point of view is embedded deep in the product, not announced on the packaging," wrote Ezra Klein, editor-in-chief of Vox. "Its biases are quietly built into algorithms, reflected in platform rules, expressed in code few of us can understand and fewer of us will ever read."

It's been difficult for Silicon Valley to adapt to the new political order. Many companies are at odds with conservative positions on immigration, climate change and sexual identity -- taking stances that seemed safely mainstream until recently.

Nonetheless, they've tried to appear more welcoming to President Trump and his supporters.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt, head of Google's parent company Alphabet, are among the big names that agreed to advise the president on his technology council.

Google has also tried to hire more conservatives for its lobbying and policy initiatives, and Facebook donated money to the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. The social network also replaced its news editors with an algorithm after conservatives said employees were suppressing right-wing content.

To be sure, Silicon Valley counts some conservatives and Trump supporters among its list of top entrepreneurs. None is more famous than Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and a billionaire venture capitalist, who spoke strongly in support of then-candidate Trump at the Republican National Convention last year. Thiel, despite running large investment funds, has become an outcast in some circles of the industry for his work with Trump.

Link:
Google Protests Bring Culture Wars to Silicon Valley - Top Tech News

The controversy over tech giant Googles firing of James Damore after he internally circulated a memo criticising the companys diversity-driven hiring practices has put Americas suffocating corporate culture in the limelight. Yet it also speaks to a broader question: Do modern conservatives blindly defend corporate rights to the detriment of all other values?

If so, Google is the perfect example of why they shouldnt.

To be fair, many on the Right used the incident as another example of Americas deteriorating culture of free expression. Yet many within Googles c-suite and its shareholders were likely comforted by the reality that those criticising Damores firing were never going to do a damn thing about it.

Google, with its headquarters in liberal California, isnt interested in protecting free expression if that means risking bad publicity. Nor does the company seem remotely interested in leading a counter-charge against those who prize diversity as the ultimate good if it means appearing un-politically correct. So no, there were no market incentives for Google to do anything but fire Damore. But that doesnt make it right.

Only 13 per cent of todays labour force are business owners. Within this small percentage, the vast majority arent owners or executives of what we would call big business. Thus, particularly in an age where the corporate paternalism of the 1950s has died and when CEO pay has skyrocketed in comparison to the average employee, its rather peculiar how conservatives of all stripes jump in lock-step to the defence of the corporate establishment, including large, faceless conglomerates that have spent the last 30 years putting mom-and-pop stores out of business for good.

To be clear, the Lefts habit of paranoid demonisation of any big business is pathology in itself. That doesnt mean, however, that conservatives should position themselves diametrically opposed to the Left by playing apologist and protector. And yet, thats precisely where so much of the mainstream is today whether its in the rhetoric of Republican politicians, the various memes found on social media spread by free-market accounts on Facebook and Twitter accounts, or the numerous GOP Political Action Committees (PACs) and advocacy groups gleaning big bucks from corporate donors. When the private sector behaves unjustly, or wants something from the government (tax breaks, bail outs), theres usually a race on the Right to act as its pro-bono spokesman.

Dont you realise, conservative think tankers often ask when a Democratic politician or activist rails against some supposed act of greed or malevolence by a hedge fund or pharmaceutical company, that the alternative is authoritarian socialism? Defending these companies means defending liberty itself! While the threat of a radical Left has certainly become more real than ever, such apocalyptic language in the service of a few large, extremely wealthy companies and banks seems silly. The Road to Serfdom doesnt begin by shaming millionaires who are often not self-aware enough to even attempt to hide their love of profits at the expense of employee wages or social cohesion.

Nor do such attitudes seem consistent with conservatism. Any large centralised system or authority has the habit of crushing individualism. Whether its a public school or white-collar workplace, conformity is king, while true creativity and thinking differently are under-valued, even grounds for suspicion. Very few seem to make it while failing up seems to be the norm for those who know how to game the system. Nothing new here, yet it feels as if such complaints are met with eye rolls from elites on the Right many of whom have grown extremely alienated from the working conditions of the average Americans.

Theres certainly something to be said about principles here that despite growing incidents of illiberal censorship and ideological management and control, conservatives should still seek to defend all corporations as the pillars of free society. But if our politicians have only a finite time to speak about various issues, perhaps less attention should be given to quarterly returns and marginal tax rates for wealthy CEOs until companies realise they are important actors in the contemporary culture wars, too.

None of this is to say that conservatives should join forces with Sen Elizabeth Warren and spend their days yelling into the abyss about every potential unfairness in the free market. But it would do Americas corporate powerhouses and the country some good if they knew that more than just half of the country was willing to hold them accountable when they act irresponsibly.

This article was first published on The American Conservative, and has been republished here with permission.

Read more:
Conservatives' Blind Love For Corporates Must End - Swarajya

Conservative protesters scuttled plans to gather outside Googles offices this weekend, putting on hold an effort to take Americas culture wars directly to Silicon Valley.

The region was long insulated from political rancor, but now has become one of the most important ideological battlegrounds. That became ever more clear Wednesday, when protest organizers said that the news coverage surrounding their plans had led to threats from left-wing terrorist groups.

The now-postponed rallies were inspired by James Damore, the former Google engineer who was fired last week for posting a 10-page internal memo arguing that the lack of women in tech could be attributed to biological differences. His dismissal sparked an outcry from conservatives who say their opinions are being muzzled by liberal technology companies and led Damore to criticize his former company for promoting a particularly intense echo chamber.

The March on Google stands for free speech and the open discussion of ideas, wrote event organizer Jack Posobiec, a conservative media figure who pushed the Pizzagate and Seth Rich conspiracy theories and recently was retweeted by the president.

Posobiec, who did not respond to questions sent to his Facebook page, had said that the planned marches would not be alt-right events and that he wanted to avoid the violence and mayhem experienced in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend.

Protests had been planned for Saturday at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., and other company offices such as Venice, Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Seattle.

Organizers say they now plan to hold the events in a few weeks time.

A post on the marchs website said the event was postponed because of threats from unspecified alt-left terrorist groups, including one from someone threatening to drive a car into the march.

The Mountain View Police Department, Atlanta Police Department and the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., said Wednesday morning that they had not received any reports of such threats. Police departments in several other cities did not immediately respond to requests for comment; the FBI declined to comment.

The march organizers repeated use of the term alt-left as well as placing blame for the postponement of the protests on left-leaning groups and news outlets echoed rhetoric used by President Trump the day before. On Tuesday, Trump used alt-left to describe anti-racism counter-protesters who demonstrated against last weekends far-right rally in Charlottesville, and he faulted both sides for the violence there a contention at odds with local police accounts.

The mayhem in Charlottesville included clashes between armed white militias and counter-protesters, as well as deadly violence: A car driven by a man described by authorities as a white supremacist plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman, Heather Heyer, and injuring more than a dozen others.

Mountain View police have said organizers of the Google protests were not connected to Charlottesville rally participants.

We want you to know that we are working with both Google and with the event planners to ensure the protest is a peaceful one, the department said Tuesday in a statement.

Damore told CNBC that he is not involved with the marches, adding, I dont support efforts to try to hurt Google directly.

Still, his memo pointed to the clash of ideas within the technology industry at a time when its products play an increasingly bigger role in the daily lives of Americans.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Snapchat and other social media occupy 5 1/2 hours of the average U.S. adults week, according to Nielsen, a span that has grown sharply in recent years. And the online platforms power to spread and enforce cultural values has become a matter of contention across the political spectrum.

Conservatives point to years of evidence of a liberal agenda in the tech industry. Theyve drawn comparisons between Damore's case and Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich, who stepped down a decade ago following outrage over his support of a ban on same-sex marriage.

More recently, right-wing activists say YouTube is filtering conservative videos so that they wont appear unless users toggle their settings to accept graphic or potentially offensive content.

The conditions are a far cry from just a few years ago, when technologists were thought of as political neophytes the descendants of a counterculture that turned hippies into billionaires like Steve Jobs. If there was a political streak in the valley, it tended to be libertarian.

But the 2016 presidential election demonstrated just how influential the regions platforms are to American public opinion.

Where would Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders presidential campaign have gone without the rabid support of smartphone-wielding millennials spreading #FeelTheBern?

And how long would Donald Trumps campaign have lasted without his supporters memes and the candidates personal Twitter account?

Jeremy Carl, a former tech worker who serves as a fellow at conservative think tank Hoover Institution, said the anger among his ideological peers stems from egregious actions taken by Google and other big tech companies.

Efforts to take down or stunt the growth of potentially offensive online publications have reached a ridiculous level, he said.

Despite Trumps victory last year with the aid of a fearsome social media strategy, conservatives accuse Facebook, Twitter and Google of censoring their points of view by suspending accounts and firing employees like Damore who speak out against diversity training.

The recklessness of the industry and its partisan politics have brought us to this point. They have no credibility among the right to do self-regulation, said Carl, who has advocated for treating Google as a utility company that must provide a neutral service.

At stake is the future of news and information in a country where facts are so often viewed through a political lens. Control of these digital platforms, once thought to be apolitical, could swing the national conversation around culture and politics.

What also irks critics is that there are few alternatives to Google and Facebook. So conservatives who dont like those companies politics feel they have no choice but to keep using their services.

Internet people brag about freedom of expression in the U.S. relative to whats available in China, but thats just not the case when you look at the Internet monopolies in the U.S., said Ron Unz, a Palo Alto software entrepreneur who launched unsuccessful campaigns for California governor and English-only education.

Youre talking about something closer to modern totalitarianism, Unz added.

(By comparison, China tightly monitors discourse on its closed-off Internet, employing thousands of censors and trolls to promote the governments positions and stifle open dissent).

Unz said he thinks tech companies should be held to the same standards as the government when it comes to freedom of expression because of their market dominance.

If the government is legally prohibited from censoring certain forms of speech, it seems wrong to allow Google to do what the government cant do, Unz said.

It doesnt help either that tech companies operate in near secrecy driving suspicion that the Googles and Facebooks of the world are stifling conservative views with lines of hidden code.

The tech industrys point of view is embedded deep in the product, not announced on the packaging, wrote Ezra Klein, editor-in-chief of Vox. Its biases are quietly built into algorithms, reflected in platform rules, expressed in code few of us can understand and fewer of us will ever read.

Its been difficult for Silicon Valley to adapt to the new political order. Many companies are at odds with conservative positions on immigration, climate change and sexual identity taking stances that seemed safely mainstream until recently.

Nonetheless, theyve tried to appear more welcoming to Trump and his supporters.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt, head of Googles parent company Alphabet, are among the big names that agreed to advise the president on his technology council.

Google has also tried to hire more conservatives for its lobbying and policy initiatives, and Facebook donated money to the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. The social network also replaced its news editors with an algorithm after conservatives said employees were suppressing right-wing content.

To be sure, Silicon Valley counts some conservatives and Trump supporters among its list of top entrepreneurs. None is more famous than Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and a billionaire venture capitalist, who spoke strongly in support of then-candidate Trump at the Republican National Convention last year. Thiel, despite running large investment funds, has become an outcast in some circles of the industry for his work with Trump.

Times staff writer Tracey Lien contributed to this report.

david.pierson@latimes.com

paresh.dave@latimes.com

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UPDATES:

11:55 a.m.: This article was updated with new details, including information about purported threats and comments from various police departments.

7:05 a.m.: This article was updated with the postponement of the marches.

This article was originally published at 5 a.m.

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Protests against Google are postponed as culture wars roil Silicon Valley - Los Angeles Times