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People say that, but there are parts of the US with very broad restrictions on what at-will employees can be fired for (California), or do not have a default assumption of at-will employment (Montana), and they are not especially resistant to cancel culture. Indeed, many cases the labor protections are what demands firing of some righties.
It depends. For example we don’t know what settlement Damore and Google came to but he was able to pursue legal action against them because California bars firing for political opinions. Nybbler claims it was “probably” very small but I’m much more skeptical, I think it was a larger settlement.
Damore hasn’t worked much recently for example even though his skillset and political cancellation would surely make him attractive to various Thielverse and other right-leaning tech companies. That suggests a big payout to me.
I'm not sure what you're using to support that. Damore's been working for some unnamed startup in Austin since 2018, according to his LinkedIn page, and it doesn't even look like a lead (or single-digit-number) position. That looks a lot more like 'right-leaning tech company' than fuck you money.
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