Home Depot worker sacked after praising Trump assassination attempt
Viral video that led to a hardware store checkout worker being sacked has been viewed millions of times, sparking a massive internet debate.
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A hardware store cashier in the US has been sacked after allegedly praising the attempted assassination of Donald Trump online before being confronted about the comments in a viral video.
Furious debate has now exploded within the right-wing over the hounding of the Home Depot worker out of her job, with some decrying “cancel culture” and others showing no mercy.
“Too bad they weren’t a better shooter!” screenshots show the woman wrote on Facebook after Saturday’s shooting at a Trump rally in rural Pennsylvania that nearly killed the former President, left one attendee dead and two others injured.
A member of the public then tracked down the woman while she was working at The Home Depot store in Auburn, New York, to confront her over the post.
In the video, viewed millions of times across X and TikTok since Monday, he asks if she is the woman whose name appeared on the Facebook comment, which she confirms “yeah”.
“And you think that the shooter should have been a better shot?” he asks. “Is that what you posted on Facebook?”
“I’m at work,” she says, as she serves a customer.
“You think that that shooter should have been a shooter, huh?” he asks again.
“I am at work,” she says.
“I think that’s pretty messed up,” the man continues.
“Pretty anti-American if you ask me. As a veteran, I’m disgusted. What have you provided to this country? I’m sorry, this is ridiculous. You are ridiculous, and I’m making you famous.”
The video was then shared again by the popular right-wing X account Libs of TikTok, founded by former real estate agent Chaya Raichik, who tagged the woman’s employer.
“Hi @HomeDepot! Are you aware that you employ people who call for political violence and the [assassination] of Presidents? Any comment?” she wrote.
The company’s official account replied, “Hi, this individual’s comments don’t reflect The Home Depot or our values. We can confirm she no longer works at The Home Depot.”
In the wake of the attempted assassination, Raichik and other right-wing accounts have gone after members of the public who publicly praised the shooting on social media by contacting their employers.
On Tuesday, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters, a Republican, confirmed a teacher at Ardmore Highschool who posted that she wished “they had a better scope” had been sacked and her teaching certificate would be revoked, after being alerted to the comments by Raichik.
But many online argued going after the Home Depot worker and getting her sacked was excessive.
“Sorry but if you show up at a stranger’s work to film and shame them for posting something you don’t like on social media, there’s a 99.99 per cent chance you’re the a**hole,” one X user said. “I don’t condone or agree with what she posted, but she *was* a cashier at Home Depot FFS. Leave her alone.”
A similar comment said: “Some dude tracked a lady down because she made bad comments on Facebook. He got her on camera at Home Depot, her job, and now she’s fired. If you’re trying to get some nobody fired, you’re almost always the bad guy.”
A third wrote: “This is not the way. Going after news casters or politicians for these kinds of statements is totally fair game. Not old ladies working in the checkout lane.”
One popular X account said it as “witch-hunting behaviour and it’s low”.
“Everyone commenting agreeing with this is a peasant with a pitchfork, and a low worm person,” she wrote. “When will conservatives find out that being against cancel culture means you can’t cancel people.”
Peachy Keenan, an anonymous blogger and author, said: “I totally object to an older woman being fired from this type of job. It’s not her fault she is brainwashed. I forgive her … her life is hard enough. Maybe just ask her to delete?”
Fellow anonymous internet personality Niccolo Soldo from the FbF blog argued “getting Home Depot employees fired is f**king stupid and anyone supporting it is a f**king r****d”. “This isn’t a person in a position of power. It’s a f**king prole,” he said.
David Harsanyi, senior editor at The Federalist, similarly argued: “Getting some Home Depot worker fired for being stupid doesn’t hurt the ‘elites’ or media, it just hurts some woman who needs a job at Home Depot.”
Far-right accounts, however, widely celebrated the woman being sacked, highlighting similar treatment of conservatives.
“I can’t believe these right wingers went after some poor grandma at Home Depot,” one account sarcastically commented, with a photo a young Kansas City Chiefs fan who was smeared as a racist by sports blog Deadspin last year for wearing black and red face paint and a Native American headdress.
He noted several other examples, including the time CNN hunted down an anonymous Reddit user in 2017 and forced the man to apologise for making a Trump meme.
“The correct response to the Home Depot cashier being fired for wishing Trump died is ‘I don’t care’,” wrote Scott Greer, a former editor of The Daily Caller who was revealed in 2018 to have secretly written for a white-supremacist online journal.
“Libs got electricians fired for doing the OK hand sign and other workers terminated just for criticising BLM. This isn’t some great victory, but you shouldn’t cry over it.”
Greer added, “Hot take — it’s good that society punishes people who openly advocate for Trump’s assassination. When he was President, this was an encouraged opinion and no one really suffered consequences for it. Now they do — and that’s progress.”
Controversial blogger and activist Charles Haywood wrote: “We can only win when punishment for our enemies, all of them, is 10X or 100X what they have done to us for decades.
“She is a truly bad person, because she supports the Left. True, only 5 per cent or 10 per cent of the Left is hardcore … the rest will just change their opinions when the change comes. But she signed up as a foot soldier for evil … she is responsible for the consequences. And her harm will advance the cause of good.”
Mystery Grove, a niche right-wing book publisher, commented: “My hot take on the Home Depot saga — I wouldn’t participate because it’s corrosive and often counter-productive to behave vindictively or celebrate bad things happening to defenceless people, but I also just don’t care about it because these people would cheer my death in abstract.”
Originally published as Home Depot worker sacked after praising Trump assassination attempt
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