I basically agree with this (and might put the threshold higher than $100, probably much higher for people actively pursuing policy careers), with the following common exceptions:
It seems pretty low-cost to donate to a candidate from Party X if...
You’ve already made donations to Party X. Larger and more recent ones are slightly worse, but as Daniel notes, even small ones from several elections ago can come back to bite.
You don’t see a realistic world where you go into the federal government during a Party Y administration even if you didn’t donate to Party X, because...
You don’t think you could go into the federal government at all (though as Daniel notes, you may not realize at the time of making the donation that you might want to later; what I have in mind is like, you have significantly below average people skills, and/or you’ve somehow disqualified yourself).
You have a permanently discoverable digital paper trail of criticizing Party Y, e.g. social media posts, op-eds, etc.
You just don’t think you’d be able to stomach working in a Party Y administration. (Though consider asking, would you really not be able to stomach it for a few years if it seemed like an amazing career and impact opportunity?)
Cross-posting this comment from the EA Forum:
I basically agree with this (and might put the threshold higher than $100, probably much higher for people actively pursuing policy careers), with the following common exceptions:
It seems pretty low-cost to donate to a candidate from Party X if...
You’ve already made donations to Party X. Larger and more recent ones are slightly worse, but as Daniel notes, even small ones from several elections ago can come back to bite.
You don’t see a realistic world where you go into the federal government during a Party Y administration even if you didn’t donate to Party X, because...
You don’t think you could go into the federal government at all (though as Daniel notes, you may not realize at the time of making the donation that you might want to later; what I have in mind is like, you have significantly below average people skills, and/or you’ve somehow disqualified yourself).
You have a permanently discoverable digital paper trail of criticizing Party Y, e.g. social media posts, op-eds, etc.
You just don’t think you’d be able to stomach working in a Party Y administration. (Though consider asking, would you really not be able to stomach it for a few years if it seemed like an amazing career and impact opportunity?)