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Hello, The short version is this: Successful anti-authoritarian movements use their economic power to stop the slide into fascism. That’s why Indivisible is enthusiastically joining We Ain’t Buying It: a corporate pressure campaign targeting Home Depot, Target, and Amazon this Black Friday weekend. The longer version is this: Show me what autocracy looks like! What we’re experiencing in America now is strikingly similar to what other democracies that have collapsed into authoritarianism have experienced. Yes, it’s a right-wing government passing right-wing laws that cut healthcare to give tax cuts to right-wing donors. But the fight is over more than just the national legislature or with the executive branch. In an authoritarian breakthrough moment, the regime attacks or co-opts other sources of power in a society as well — media, law firms, universities, businesses, political critics, and even comedians. We’ve seen this story play out again and again — in Serbia under Miloševi?, Hungary under Orbán, Turkey under Erdo?an, Russia under Putin. The regime guts the judiciary, shutters newsrooms, attacks universities, brands NGOs as foreign agents, undermines the political opposition, bullies businesses into submission, and even drives satirical shows off the air. And now we’re seeing it in America. Businesses are caving to regime pressure or simply obeying in advance. Since Trump took office, we’ve seen corporations and billionaires rush to bend the knee. The list is so long it can feel like cowardice is just part of the culture now:
I could go on, but you get the gist: A huge number of companies have decided that their interests are best advanced by throwing their lot in with the regime. For those collaborators and capitulators, it’s simply a business calculation. And that’s why it’s time for us to change the math. This Black Friday weekend, we’re joining with a super-team of organizers — the Target Three, Black Voters Matter Fund, Until Freedom, Working Families Party, 50501, and more — to issue a shared collective call: We Ain’t Buying It. We Ain’t Buying It is a movement action to flex our power by zeroing in on three targets — companies who have, each in their own way, enabled Trump’s agenda:
Our call to action here is simple: Pause your spending with these companies from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. Together, we’ll send them a simple message: ”Stop enabling Trump’s attacks on our values, our neighbors, and our democracy!” Since launching this campaign last week, we’ve seen an overwhelmingly positive response and some fantastic organizing — shout out to Indivisible SETX in Texas for already planning a cool “Community over Commercialism” event! But one question has come up a few times: What about all the other companies that are also enabling Trump’s agenda? We want to concentrate our focus on three notable consumer-facing enablers because we’ve seen that organizing is far more effective when it is concentrated and easy to join in on. That doesn’t mean our three targets are the only problem. But if we can get their attention and provide impetus for them to shape up, we’ll send every other consumer-facing company the message that even a quiet decision to enable this administration might trigger widespread consumer outrage. And that message, if we land it, will be heard all across the corporate world. Then, rinse and repeat! Successful movements innovate, experiment, learn, adapt, evolve, and grow. That’s what we’re doing here. But if this is going to work, it’s going to take all of us who have been building this No Kings era to participate. So here’s my ask to you: Forward this email to a friend who protested for the first time at No Kings — or who wanted to join No Kings but couldn’t. Then, read on to this week’s to-dos for even more ways to make We Ain’t Buying It a success. In solidarity, Your weekly to-dos
P.S. Withholding support from corporations enabling the Trump regime is a powerful way to fight authoritarianism. Supporting the organizations who DO fight back hard — and who organize others to fight — is just as important. If you can, we encourage you to support your local mutual aid networks, or chip in to power your friendly pro-democracy organizers at Indivisible — Paid for by Indivisible Action. Not authorized by any candidate or committee. Editor’s note: AmigosNAZ welcomes comments on stories appearing in Amigos805 and on issues impacting the community. Comments must relate directly to stories published in AmigosNAZ, no spam please. We reserve the right to remove or edit comments. Full name, city required. Contact information (telephone, email) will not be published. Please send your comments directly to fmoraga@amigosnaz.com |
