Divided America: Conservative Mayor Hounded Out of Office

Politicians are most often driven out of office for committing corruption, criminal behavior or other significant moral transgressions — now they are driven out for holding opinions that challenge left-wing orthodoxy.

A story published Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times details the harrowing experience of Jeff Wieler, now former mayor of Piedmont, California, who was hounded from office recently after defending President Donald Trump’s response to a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville that turned violent, and — Wieler claims — for his habit of sharing conservative articles on social media.

“A registered Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Wieler, 66, believes he has been unfairly pilloried for posting what he considers provocative articles from a variety of mostly conservative publications,” said the Times.

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“Now and then I would see an article, something that really gave an interesting point of view,” Wieler told the Times. “The Atlantic, or Salon or National Review. All kinds of places. I would post it and say, ‘interesting perspective,’ or ‘good points’ or ‘worth reading.'”

“Things blew up after Conna McCarthy, a community activist, tangled with Wieler over Charlottesville,” explained the Times. “After a back-and-forth on Facebook about whether Trump was forceful enough in his condemnation, McCarthy suggested that Wieler open the August 21 council meeting with a moment of silence for the victims of Charlottesville.”

According to the report, Wieler “accused McCarthy, daughter of the late Democratic California Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, of being a ‘lurid partisan’ and said, ‘The only moment of silence you will get is when I stop engaging with you.’ His cranky words set off the citizen revolt that led to his resignation.”

The episode reveals not only the level of political polarization in America, but also the intolerance leftists have for those with whom they disagree. Of course, Wieler is hardly the first individual to meet such a fate.

In August Google fired software engineer James Damore for authoring and posting an anonymous white paper questioning the company’s diversity policies. In an interview with Business Insider, Damore said that being conservative in today’s culture is “like being gay in the 1950s. These conservatives have to stay in the closet and have to mask who they really are. And that’s a huge problem because there’s open discrimination against anyone who comes out of [the] closet as a conservative.”

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In June, The Daily Wire reported that part-time UCLA professor Keith Fink, a conservative and vocal defender of free speech, was let go from his position due to his beliefs. In April of last year, sports commentator and former baseball player Curt Schilling was fired from ESPN for a social media post made in opposition to proposed laws that would allow individuals to use public restrooms that correspond to their chosen “gender identity.”

“It’s been brutal,” Wieler told the Times. “I’m not a saint. I know I can be blunt. But I spent 25 years trying to improve this town, and I think I did a damn good job. But if I am the center of a firestorm, and a majority of the City Council decides to have a special meeting to discuss removing me as mayor, I don’t want to put the city through this.”

(photo credit, homepage and article images: Sam Pullara, Flickr)