"firing the leaker is going to rile them up more."
It seems our society has devolved into satisfying the mob rather than doing the right thing these days.
I've seen some of the comments from internal Google groups that were since leaked after this incident. Some of the most horrible thoughts and opinions were posted, with actual real names, but nobody got punished or fired. Why? Because they were progressive/hard-left thoughts and opinions.
This is all about politics and has nothing to do with right or wrong.
It's just more proof that these large tech companies are becoming the equivalent of fascist governments that police our thoughts and opinions....and punish us for wrongthink.
Actors with power exercise that power by enforcing their will over those with less.
Googlers being mostly neo-left is irrelevant. Were they neo-con, Google would've done the same and appeased them by firing a single employee as a scapegoat. In reality, Google doesn't care about politics because it, like sovereign states, is only mindful of its own self-interest, political games are only one tool in its aresenal to get there; and just like sovereign states, Google is effectively a stateless yet sovereign state of its own, not strictly bound under any state's power, like the citizens of any country are.
The truth is, buddy, politics won't do anything for you. They've been bread and circus since Ancient Athens for the labor classes so they wouldn't cause too much of a mess.
This is often a useful abstraction for predicting corporate activity in general, but not explaining specific actions by specific people in the company.
As far as I can tell, people seem to be reacting to ... a lot of translations, cherry-picking, inaccurate summations, and strawmen when it comes to this Damore deal.