Boycotts can be hard to organize, especially in a digital age when consumers find shopping at large, national retailers so easy and convenient.
During the past several months, we’ve seen the power of grassroots resistance to Trump and MAGA (I’m sure Jimmy Kimmel would agree), but getting people to forego a streaming channel or participate in a No Kings rally is easier than asking them to disrupt their daily shopping routines for weeks or months.
We Ain’t Buying It may have hit on a middle ground–a limited-time boycott that will send a message without requiring participants to engage in long-term withdrawals. As the Contrarian recently explained, a group of resistance organizers are promoting a brief consumer boycott over the Thanksgiving holiday. The boycott is focused on three companies: Amazon, Home Depot, and Target. The intent is to send a pointed and unmistakable message to three companies that have been identified as Trump regime enablers.
We Ain’t Buying It proposes to mobilize the collective power of the grassroots this Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. As the alliance announced,
President Trump and his corporate allies continue to relentlessly attack our communities—from mass firings of federal workers to corporate pressure to dismantle DEI to ICE raids targeting our neighbors to a government shutdown that left 42 million people without needed food….
Together we will hold accountable corporations like Target, Home Depot, and Amazon, that continue to enable and profit from this administration’s relentless and cruel attacks on working people and our families.
As a co-founder of Black Voters Matter explained, “We’re watching corporations bend over backwards to appease an administration and gain tax breaks, even when it hurts their own customers.” As she also pointed out, they’ve ignored a significant fact: “tax breaks don’t matter when sales collapse.”
Choosing Thanksgiving weekend through Cyber Monday will give ordinary people an opportunity to send a very pointed message–that they have the power to direct their patronage and dollars to companies that have demonstrated a commitment to the people who build their bottom lines. And brief boycotts can be very effective.
In the case of Disney/ABC, “Data from research firm Antenna found that during September, the number of U.S. consumers who canceled their Disney+ subscriptions averaged 8%, which is double the 4% estimate for the prior two months,” The Street reported. Also, Hulu’s average cancellation rate was “twice the 5% rate for the previous two months.” (Among all its streaming services, Disney reportedly lost 1.7 million subscribers.) In addition, Disney suffered a dip in market capitalization of $4.2 billion at one point.
The article describes how, through our history, various boycotts have changed corporate conduct and publicized citizens’ grievances. They’ve given ordinary people a sense of personal agency, at the same time “incentivizing” companies to think twice before enabling an autocratic regime.
Indivisible, which is one of the organizations sponsoring the boycott, has a website devoted to the effort. Their “ask” is simple: “Target, Home Depot, and Amazon must stop undermining our democracy by collaborating with, and enabling, the Trump administration. Reinstate their DEI policies, refuse to cooperate with ICE, and withhold funding to Trump’s authoritarian regime. ”
The collective action they endorse is equally simple:
Join us for a full Thanksgiving black out. From Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday (11/27 – 12/1), don’t buy anything from Target, Amazon, or Home Depot. Don’t give any money to the companies that are undermining our democracy.
Instead, support small, local businesses or mutual aid efforts in your community.
We Ain’t Buying It chose Thanksgiving weekend for an obvious reason; it’s a peak shopping time. As the site recounts, more than 196 million Americans shopped over last year’s holiday weekend, making it a perfect opportunity to send a message– to notify Target, Home Depot, and Amazon that collaborating with Trump imposes a cost. We won’t shop with you. If they don’t get the record numbers of shoppers they’re anticipating, they’ll notice!
I stopped shopping at Target when they gave in to Right-wing criticisms and limited their Gay Pride merchandise. I haven’t shopped at Home Depot since I learned their founder was a huge Trump donor. Admittedly, I’d find it very difficult to entirely stop shopping at Amazon, but I can certainly refrain from visiting that site for the few days of the boycott. And I can–and will– also refrain from buying my Christmas and Chanukah gifts there, something I’ve done for the past several years.
We can all shop local this holiday weekend, helping smaller, local retailers and sending a very important message!
We also stopped going to the target in muncie a good year ago. Live too far from the home depot, but would stay away if one was close. Avoid Amazon as much as possible buying direct when possible. Will continue past the holidays.
Monday night Rachel reported on a highly successful No Kings protest at a specific Home Depot outlet in an LA suburb. It had to have taken time and combined efforts to plan this clever protest by having so many people agree to buy one product over time at a specific Home Depot. The product was ice scrapers which all buyers appeared at the same time at the same Home Depot store on Saturday to return their ICE scrapers in numbers that caused the location to shut its doors. There is more than one way to skin Trump of his illegal actions. We are now being controlled by his cabinet of his Pussy Posse and Goon Squad and their supporters of Flying Monkeys. If the rats are abandoning his ship we may have a chance to fill their empty seats, unless that rumor is another lie.
News here in Indiana this morning reported that our 2026 Legislature will be in session on Monday, December 1st, to take another vote on gerrymandering the state. There’s gotta be a law! We gotta just find someone with the strength to enforce it!
Any way to disrupt the flow of money to the oligarchy is worth it and sends a clear message of who drives our consumer-driven economy.
We also need to be thinking about how to protest or boycott the High Tech Broligarchy. Prepare now for what’s coming very soon after Trump just announced his “Genesis Project.” It’s a fancy name and decree for a simple “too big to fail bailout of an industry ready to implode. Trump gave them $500 billion to build out the architecture earlier this year, but Sam Altman hasn’t been able to turn a profit sizable enough to repay trillion-dollar debt loads. They are coming for our Treasury again!
And JoAnn, I don’t think the “splintering of MAGA” is a lie. Insiders are telling several of the independent journalists that I follow the same thing. Like MTG, the GOP CongressCritters don’t like the way Trump is treating Congress. I’m not sure what Trump thought would happen by berating the legislative branch.
I know, I know, assuming Trump “thinks” is a stretch.
I saw on TV the other night (Rachel Maddow?) that a huge group of customers lined up around the block to walk into Home Depot and each bought one 17-cent ice scraper (to protest their providing ICE with a venue for human destruction). But the beauty of it was that everyone in that group then turned around and returned their ice scrapers for a 17-cent refund. The cash register system was overwhelmed and the store staff were overwhelmed and they had to close the store. Messages do matter.
Todd; watching the evening news broadcasts on cable I suddenly pictured the current federal administration as a reincarnated Hindenburg, filled with dangerous gases in the process of crashing and burning. There were some survivors of the original, actual Hindenburg crash; my question now is who will survive this incineration? GOP appears to finally be finding Noem as the one with the final say on those deportations to El Salvador who are now lost souls; another distraction to be denied by Trump as his intrusive support of Kashe Patel? His Turkey Pardon speech quickly named a victim to ridicule and to embarrass by saying he wouldn’t name him, as he again embarrassed himself in the process. What will he find to attempt to take away the joys of the many coming religious holidays in January; his Christian Nationalism pseudo Christianity administration will ignore all other religions and disallow public celebrations by their followers. He manages to leave us nothing to look forward to but denigration and total lack of empathy for those suffering through his bogus “peace talks” as he supports Putin.
I Ain’t Buying It—I have boycotted Amazon and Target before, and will for this event as well. Not really a big deal for me, since I don’t shop on Thanksgiving or Black Friday. I like Small Business Saturday—especially in Zionsville.
On Cyber Monday, I will be at a rally against redistricting—12-2—at the Statehouse.
Mea culpa;; of course that should read December, not January. I’m trying to get past the end of this 2025 Holocaust, but with little hope of change in the the New Year. Thinking of Leon Uris’ book “Mila 18” when the Jewish Uprising in Warsaw finally began and saw victory for a time, will we be forced to crawl through the sewers of MAGA continuing rule?
“the dependence of classes on each other is reciprocal”…Jane Adams
The message of the boycotts is that without the consumer, they got nothin’. We are a consumer based society, culturally and economically. In reality, we have the power of the purse.
HCR has an excellent letter today about the history of boycotts in the U.S., most often lead by women, to force change in favor of the poor and marginalized.
I have stopped shopping at Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Chik-fil-a, etc., for well over a year as those corporations have enabled dump and his gang of henchmen and women.
I won’t be shopping any of the big three over the weekend. Amazon will be the most challenging as so often it is the only place I can find what I need. But I can and will exercise restraint, spending only at local businesses as much as possible for the duration of the holiday season.
To JoAnn, thank you for the reference to “Mila 18”. It brought back a memory from years ago that inspired me to read extensively about the Holocaust and its survivors.
RESIST.
I don’t shop at Home Depot and I have made plans not to go to Target. As for Amazon,, I won’t need to buy anything before December 8th.. I also don’t buy any product I don’t have to buy from Koch Industries. They have so many monopolies, it’s impossible to boycott everything, but, I won’t buy Dixie paper plates, or Brawny paper towels, or Northern toilet paper. They have earned a really thorough antitrust investigation for their purchase of carpet stain protection companies. I’m not holding out hope for one, but it is needed. If anybody deserves a boycott, it’s Koch!
Not sure most of the individual boycotts will work given the volume of US consumer buying. How about stopping by the business, asking to see the manager and then telling him/her why you are not shopping there. A printed handout might negate that.
i moved to Calif in 1970. Ceasar Chaves and the UFW. i remember the boycott of gallo wines and that family ruled a no union workplace. it worked,though it took awhile. today jiffy WTFs of amazon etc, dont buy.. besides,if ya had any idea of the extra diesel to haul stuff all over before you get it,ya might want to ask..climate anyone? home depot is also a big name trump hole. this whole issue with immigrants and any minority,did anyone think if they all had the same outlook on life as anyone of us,how much bigger,and better the economy would be. main street would probaby rule over wall street. free medical coverage would be seen as a benefit to all. after all, if ya cant work ya dont add to profit. moral issue. were humans,we support humanity. corp assholes dont.
tommarow their serving eugenics at mar a lago.. the site of COP30 next year.
best wishes all…
I DO NOT shop at Any of these places.
Amazon is the most difficult. to Never use.
Do People to people shopping at smaller local stores. supporting my town.
in the hope this helps WORKING people to keep their jobs. these are your neighbors. KOCH is harder, remember looking them up a few years ago, mostly industrial. thanks Peggy forgot about paper towels and toilet paper.
products.
I have refused to buy anything from Amazon for at least a year. I will add Home Depot to my list. I haven’t bought any Disney merchandise in 20 years, with no plans to change. I have objected to the tactics these monster corporations employ to eliminate competition, control pricing and flood the media with half-truths. Add Walmart to the list. I like shopping at places where I know the employees’ names and can they know mine. I like doing business with people I like.
Lester,
Boycotts work great, and when they succeed, they work immediately. Look at what happened to Elon when he slashed the federal government, which caused Tesla sales to tank in the US and Europe. His brand took a significant hit, prompting him to withdraw from DOGE and return to Tesla.
When Target dropped its DEI programs, boycotts caused quarterly sales to plummet this year.
Truth be told, the ONLY way to get the oligarchies’ attention is to take away their $$$$$$$$$$$$s. When workers and consumers realize how much power they really do have, things can change.
As a Canadian, I’ve been boycotting the USA and its companies since Trump first talked tariffs as an economic method of forcing us to be your 51st state. I no longer use Amazon, go to Walmart, or Home Depot… etc. I spend my money where it matters more (to me!) which are my local stores and Canadian chains.
I currently have plans to never visit your country again. These are my ways of applying sanctions as punishment for your country’s behaviour.
I am not alone.