WASHINGTON—A mass consumer “economic blackout,” launched on social media, proposes a boycott of major megacompanies for all 24 hours of February 28 because those firms bowed to a Donald Trump edict and retreated from DEI policies to endorse racism while continuing to raise and/or fix prices.
Masses of people, looking for ways to act, are targeting major corporations that adopted DEI policies during the Biden Administration and are dropping them now. They are trying to use the leverage working people as consumers have over the economy. Consumer spending accounts for almost 75 percent of the nation’s GDP.
Angry consumers have already made serious dents in the sales of corporations like Target, Walmart, McDonald’s, Tesla and others that have dropped or in Tesla’s case, never adopted DEI policies. In all cases consumers are also targeting these companies including the nation’s major supermarket chains, for rising costs and price gouging.
Among those endorsing the boycott are Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, congressional representatives who are part of the “Squad,” including Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and some entertainment figures including Bette Midler.
Mainstream economists and media scoff at a loss of one day’s revenues—even if it’s totally successful. They claim that companies like Ford Motor, Best Buy, McDonald’s, Meta, Target, Google, Walmart, Disney, Pepsi, and Amazon can easily withstand a one-day boycott. What they will not withstand, however, is a bigger and more consistent movement with major labor and allied support growing out of something like the planned action this Friday.
The boycott is responding to an executive order to government agencies by white nationalist Republican President Trump. With mass action like this, however, corporations cannot rest easy with the idea that the movement will not grow.
Trump and. his puppeteer, mega-billionaire Elon Musk have triggered the mass anger rising up across the country. It is manifested in the many meetings Republican representatives are having with their constituents. Thousands at those meetings, including many who voted for Trump, are saying they never voted for what Trump and Musk are doing.
They are also telling Democratic representatives to “grow a spine” and fight harder against the Musk-Trump actions. At those meetings they categorically reject the approach advocated by long time Democratic strategist James Carville. Carville declared this week:
“There’s nothing Democrats can legitimately do to stop it — even if we wanted to. With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party: roll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight, and make the American people miss us.”
The arrogance and lack of respect for people reflected in those comments are categorically rejected by the people.
Musk’s “brand” of politics is totally toxic, as far as the majority of the people is concerned . There is mass rejection of his dictatorial mass firings of federal workers via Trump, closure of agencies, suspension of federal grants, programs and student loans and his threats to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
They are looking for ways to fight back and the idea of boycotting powerful corporations is one of a number of actions they are taking. And those actions are having an effect. Sales of Musk’s hallmark Tesla electric vehicles have crashed in Europe and Asia too, his company’s stock is tanking and droves of advertisers are fleeing his social media platform, Twitter/X. Those “boycotts” have nothing to do with February 28, but they show the consumer power the planned boycott discusses.
And the disruptions in the government have led to disruptions at congressional town hall meetings, especially those of Congress’s ruling Republicans.
An overflow angry crowd in Roswell, Ga., virtually booed Republican Rep. Richard McCormick off the stage when he used standard GOP “waste and fraud” rhetoric to justify the Musk-Trump “chainsaw.” Musk, a hater who espouses far-right causes, gleefully flourished a chainsaw at a conservative political conference near D.C. Anger also erupted at two GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin and another in Oregon.
The public is understanding that corporations, politicians, and industries have worked together to rig the system against the people and that they built an economy designed to exploit workers.
Trump killed all DEI offices in the federal government via an executive order his first day in office a month ago. He’s repeatedly said he wants the private sector to abandon DEI, too.
Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates said last month Trump wants to return the U.S. to the 1850s, the heyday of slavery, when the nation was ripping itself apart over that scourge.
On February 28, the 24-hour economic blackout is planned to last from midnight on Feb. 27-28 to 11:59 pm on the 28th.
There are no estimates on how much business corporate America would lose that day if the boycott succeeds, although the flight of advertisers and buyers from Musk’s firms gives a clue. For perspective, when Trump shut down half of the federal government alone for 35 days in 2017—unless Congress OK’d money for his racist Mexican Wall–it cost the economy $11 billion.
That shutdown finally ended when airlines rebelled after their workers, led by the Association of Flight Attendants, threatened to shut them down in a national boycott and when the air traffic controllers were ready to walk, too. The airlines, fearing a complete loss of business, put pressure on Trump and he capitulated, ending the shutdown.
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