Maybe it's just a matter of time until this same group gets offended by another controversial political opinion held/shared by a coworker.
It's not a useful distinction. By the same argument all the people upset about his firing should stop reading the news about it and get on with their day. All these valley programmers who lean right politically do seem quite eager to play the victim after all, really they're out looking for something to set them off like Damore's firing aren't they? They obviously have a political agenda don't they? They're recirculating news about damore's firing amongst themselves aren't they?
It's inane, the problem has a defined source: Damore bringing his political opinion into the workplace.
But let me tell you a story. Once at an SF unicorn a girl said in a public slack channel "I'd feel unsafe as a woman if my manager ever said Trump isn't a sexist." She was most certainly not fired.
So it's not been my experience that politics in the workplace is the root of the issue, because I seem to see it being really enforced unidirectionally (mind you I'm on the left myself). Hell, I've worked at two places where the CEO very clearly had a strong, personal negative reaction to Trump.
The issue I think I see is the weaponizing of PC to penalize non-left opinions as "offensive/inappropriate" which I think undermines the pursuit of truth (a value I hold higher than any political affiliation)
As a thought-experiment, suppose somebody had posted a writing exactly like what Dalmore posted in tone, but had the exact opposite view. Do you think they would have been fired for bringing up politics at work? Let's be honest with ourselves here.
[Note these two issues keep getting conflated. It may be that sexism exists, as well as asymmetrical regulations on how political speech is punished at work. ]