Curious what the legality of this sort of thing would be, can you really fire someone for political preference?
> Political Affiliation Discrimination occurs when an employee is treated adversely due to differing political membership or political views than his or her employers. Political Affiliation is not traditionally a protected class, but with politics so controversial, political affiliation discrimination is on the rise.
> There are only three jurisdictions in the United States that explicitly bans political affiliation and activity discrimination, California, D.C., and New York. New York does not cover political affiliation discrimination, only political activity discrimination. Federal law discrimination law does not cover political affiliation or political activity. However, many states prohibit employers from influencing the votes of their employees. [1]
[1] https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/political-aff...
"Can I fire the Trump supporter who reports to me?"
In California, the answer is clear — the law expressly prohibits employers from forbidding an employee from participating in politics, or controlling or directing an employee’s political activities or affiliations. Employers are also barred from firing or threatening to fire an employee in order to coerce him or her into any particular course of political activity. (California Labor Code Sections 1101 & 1102.)
These provisions encompass and protect more than simply supporting a particular candidate or party. The California Supreme Court has decided the term “political activities” includes all activities that may indicate support for a particular candidate or a political cause. This broad definition of “political activities” protects California employees from discrimination based not only on which candidate the employee supports, but also on support for or involvement in the many social and political movements of today’s political landscape.
Employees may not be fired or otherwise disciplined for participating in a climate march or attending an Ann Coulter speech; nor for going to a “Black Lives Matter” protest or supporting a border wall between the United States and Mexico; nor for countless opinions and activities in between.
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/05/16/can-i-fi...
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that "at will" employment allows an employer to fire a worker for no reason (just like an employee can decide to quit without providing a reason) but not for any reason. In particular, you can't fire someone for being black, for being pregnant, for refusing to do something illegal, etc.
This is why there is common advice of "don't tell people why you're firing them" -- as soon as you give an explanation, there's a risk that your words could be twisted into implying that you fired them for a bad (i.e., illegal) reason rather than simply for no reason.
“At-will employment is a term used in U.S. labor law for contractual relationships in which an employee can be dismissed by an employer for any reason (that is, without having to establish "just cause" for termination), and without warning”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
I can fire you for being a fan of the Raiders because I am a fan of the Chargers.
https://www.rocketlawyer.com/article/what-states-are-at-will...