Threatening workers with mass layoffs causes them to stop donating to the political opposition rather than motivating them to fight back.
While common sense suggests that economic threats would trigger a 'backlash' of political donations, this study of the 2025 federal workforce found the opposite: a sharp drop in giving. This 'anticipatory demobilization' suggests that the fear of a coming economic shock silences political participation before the harm even occurs.
Demobilization Without Backlash: Campaign Donations and the DOGE Workforce Reduction
SSRN · 6397238
Does economic harm to government workers translate into political backlash through campaign donations? I study the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which separated approximately 317,000 federal employees in 2025. Comparing the first post-inauguration years of Trump's two terms-2017 (no comparable workforce shock) and 2025 (DOGE)-I find that federal workers' Democratic donations were sharply lower in early 2025, with a 0.46 log-point decline in January before any realized cuts. This ea