Silicon Valley's shameful purging of Peter Thiel

I point this out because you may have heard that the renowned Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, a man whom it is seemingly impossible to refer to without using the word “contrarian,” is a supporter of Donald Trump. After Thiel recently decided to donate $1.25 million to Trump’s campaign, the group Project Include, led by former venture capitalist Ellen Pao, has decided to sever ties, not even with Thiel himself, but with Y Combinator, a renowned Silicon Valley incubator that has named Thiel as a part-time partner.

It seems that on the progressive left, blacklists are only bad when they target a certain group of people.

Pao’s stated rationale for this is hard to understand. Using the royal “we,” she declares herself “confused by his seasteading funding” (Thiel has in the past funded attempts to build self-sustaining colonies at sea, which seems neither here nor there, except if you just want to say, “Look at the weirdo!”). She writes that “we draw a line at individuals who fund violence and hate” but doesn’t substantiate this serious allegation with arguments or facts. Given that Hillary Clinton has called many of Trump’s supporters “deplorables,” is contributing to her campaign funding hate? Given that, unlike Trump, she has actual responsibilities for military interventions in the Middle East, is contributing to her campaign funding violence?