Tag Archives: boycott

We Ain’t Buying It

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!

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What We Can Do

Last week, I had separate lunches with two women I know, and the conversations in both revolved around anxieties produced by Trump’s coup.  Both of my companions focused on the same question: what can an individual do? Both women seemed to think that–because I’m a political policy blogger– I would have an answer, or at the very least, a suggestion.

If only!

I have a big problem–one that’s undoubtedly shared– with helplessness. Tell me there’s a problem to be solved, but I have to climb that mountain to solve it, and I’ll pull on hiking boots and make the attempt. Tell me there’s a problem, but there’s nothing I can do about it, and I’m beside myself.

I wasn’t able to share any brilliant (or even dumb) insights with my luncheon companions, but a recent Substack from Hoosiers4Democracy reminded me that we are not without the ability to mount effective protests.  We can and should continue our calls and emails to the elected cowards like Todd Young (and even to the moronic Christian Nationalists like Jim Banks). Posts to social media aren’t really a substitute for action, but even singing to the choir can probably be helpful, so we can continue those. When there is an in-person protest, we absolutely should turn out.

But as H4D reminded readers, economic “messages” are likely to be more effective. (As someone recently posted, money is the. only thing these jerks respect!)

We MUST command the attention of the corporations funding our representatives to make it clear that the policies of this administration are unpopular! We must do this in a way that is immediate, impactful, and sustainable. We are asking you to participate in several upcoming, nationally planned, economic boycott events that will remind our leaders and representatives that we have more power than they think and that they work for us. 70% of the U.S. economy is consumer driven. When money talks, they listen.

First up, join H4D on February 28, 2025 for the national Economic Blackout. This event originated with The People’s Union USA and is being promoted by organizations across the country. Absolutely NO SPENDING for 24 hours beginning at midnight on February 27th. If you must spend on essentials, please try to shop small, local stores and avoid using bank cards and credit cards.

We also ask that you maximize your impact by recruiting 3 friends or family members to participate and to ask them to recruit 3 people to participate, in the hopes of creating a snowball effect.

There is additional information on the Economic Blackout and other upcoming events, available at The People’s Union Economic Blackout.

News of the planned economic action has been spreading. So has debate about its likely efficacy. Nevertheless, if enough people participate, a day of severely diminished economic activity will send a clear message. (The threat of additional boycotts may also stiffen the spines of companies that have decided to “obey in advance” by scrapping their DEI programs and other equity efforts in order to curry favor with our bigoted would-be monarch.)

The genius of the protest on the 28th is that it offers those of us who’ve been feeling helpless a virtually painless way to be heard. It can be daunting to go out in freezing weather to physically protest (although thousands of our fellow Americans have done so). People who must work long hours cannot make personal visits to the offices of Congressmen and Senators. Even calls and emails require some positive effort. But the protest on the 28th requires us to do nothing. It’s a purposeful nothing that requires little in the way of effort or hardship. There are very few purchases that cannot be delayed–or advanced– a day, or better still, reconsidered.

There are more aggressive plans to follow up on the action planned for the 28th with more extensive actions– a number of grassroots groups have come together in a movement called Shutdown 315 to urge Americans to support a nationwide shutdown. Participants would  not only stop making purchases from major corporations, but would abstain from social media use and absent themselves from work on March 15th. This is a more ambitious effort, and if successful is likely to have a significant effect.

Participation in planned boycotts of the large companies that have “obeyed in advance” are also planned.

If enough Americans participate in these very peaceful protests, our voices will be heard. They represent a promising initial answer to the anguished question: what can I do?

Tell your friends and family. Spread the word. 

Fight back against the coup.

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High-Tech Boycotts

Yesterday, I blogged about research on the “Millennials”—the so-called DotCom generation.

I didn’t talk about one really fascinating finding: the tendency of DotCom’s to “vote” with their purchasing power, to boycott products when they disapprove of the company that makes them. As the authors noted, this behavior has not been studied—and it deserves attention.

This is a generation that has grown up in a commercialized environment, so it probably shouldn’t surprise us that so many of them are willing to “vote’ with their dollars. They see corporations as more powerful—and more dangerous—than government, and large numbers of them react by closing their pocketbooks to enterprises they disapprove of.

Now there is evidence that this mechanism for showing disapproval may be going to the next level.

The last couple of weeks, Facebook and other social media have been buzzing with news about a new “app” that will allow your smartphone to identify the company responsible for every item in your grocery basket. If it works, this is huge, because the labyrinthine nature of corporate ownership makes it very difficult to avoid enriching people you don’t like. (Who knew that the Koch brothers own companies that own other companies that produce  Bounce laundry softener sheets?)

File this one under “wait and see.” But it will certainly be interesting!

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