5 Easy Ways To #Resist Trump With Your Wallet
Donald Trump’s presidency has seen the resurgence of the ages-old consumer boycott—but unlike the boycotts of decades past, the initiatives we’re seeing today actually have the potential to be an incredibly effective tool of political resistance.
Social media has made it easier than ever before for us to collectively leverage our spending power, and to make sure the people at the top know exactly why we’re coming together to pack a punch to their bottom line.
Here are five easy ways to resist Trump through your everyday spending habits:
1. Only shop at businesses that respect the environment
The new head of the EPA is officially a climate change denier. The Trump administration recently revealed its plans to gut the agency by slashing the budget and cutting staff. All of this means a whole lot of things could soon begin to go very, very wrong with the environment.
Without active enforcement by the EPA, the regulations that protect our water, air, and soil from pollution, reduce our carbon emissions to slow climate change, and protect endangered species from extinction are likely to be ignored by corporations for the sake of increased profits. If the government won’t require businesses to operate sustainably, we’ll need to leverage our power as consumers to send a loud and clear message that we’re still going to demand it — and that their bottom lines depend on it.
2. Boycott businesses that support the Trump family and administration
In response to Trump’s infamous “Grab them by the p*ssy” tape, activists launched the #GrabYourWallet movement to let people know how to boycott businesses that put money in the Trump family’s coffers. They also aim “to act as a central resource for understanding how our own consumer purchases may have inadvertently supported the political rise of the Trump family.” Since their launch, at least 24 companies have agreed to stop selling Trump family merchandise online or in stores as a result of the campaign, including heavy-hitters like Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Jet, Uber, QVC, and Kawasaki.
A similar movement, dubbed Sleeping Giants, cropped up after the election with the goal of stopping “racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and homophobic news sites by stopping their ad dollars.” Activists have been calling out companies that ran ads on White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s Breitbart website, which habitually runs notoriously racist, sexist, and homophobic content (much of which was published under Bannon). Because of the way ad blocks are sold, many companies weren’t even aware that their ads were running on the site, and since the Seeping Giants campaign launched in November, over 1,500 companies have reportedly pulled their ad revenue from the site.
Join the movements. Spread the word.
3. Only shop at businesses that support equal pay and paid family leave for women
April 4, 2017 is “equal pay day”—the day the average American woman will finally have made as much as the average American man did during 2016.
In the US, white women earn approximately 80 cents for every dollar white men do for the same work; black women make 63 cents on the dollar, and Latina women earn just 54 cents for every dollar white men do for the same work. We’re also one of the only industrialized nations in the world not to have mandatory paid parental leave—a policy that largely impacts women.
Trump has made it obvious that advancing women’s equality isn’t among his priorities. But as consumers, we can send a loud, clear message about the importance of prioritizing gender equality by actively supporting small businesses run or owned by women and companies that have made a point of implementing adequate parental leave policies (and then publicly letting them know that we’re doing so).
4. Boycott companies that don’t support LGBT equality
Achieving marriage equality is a major milestone, but unfortunately it doesn’t mean LGBT Americans have attained full equality. For one thing, you can still be legally fired or denied access to housing because of your gender identity or sexual orientation in a majority of US states.
And things could be about to get a lot worse for the LGBT community. There’s been a recent spike in anti-LGBT hate crimes (a startling percentage of which have actually been committed in Donald Trump’s name), and emboldened by the Trump administration’s anti-LGBT rhetoric, at least 40 anti-LGBT bills have been introduced in 16 states in 2017 so far.
It’s more important now than ever to send a clear message that if companies (or states) enact policies that harm the LGBT community, it’s going to hurt their bottom line.
5. Support minority-owned businesses and companies that prioritize racial equality
The difference between what white Americans and black Americans earn is currently larger than it’s been in almost 40 years. The average black man makes about 22% less than the average white man with the same education and experience. The gap is even worse for women of color, and recent data proves that education, work experience, and residential location have nothing to do with the discrepancy: It’s the result of discrimination. Which is only getting worse under Trump.
It’s not enough just to boycott the companies doing wrong; we also need to support the businesses that reflect the way we want the world to look and the people who run them. By supporting and publicly praising companies that prioritize racial equality, we’ll also effectively let the companies that aren’t doing so know that they’re losing business as a result.
Knowing what companies are up to behind your back is admittedly a huge undertaking.
We created the Nudge for Change app to make it easier than ever to put your money where your beliefs are when it comes to issues like the environment, LGBT equality, equal pay for women, racial equality, boycotting Trump, and workers’ rights.
The app will alert you if you’re about to spend your hard-earned cash in a way that doesn’t align with your core political values, and nudge you toward nearby alternatives you can feel good about supporting. It’s like having a backup for your moral compass on your phone.
Nudge for Change is available for iOS now, and coming soon for Android.
