A friend of mine found a post on their Facebook feed this morning extolling the policies of Donald Trump and boldly stating that they didn’t care how horrible Trump was since he was ridding America of its rodent problem. One thing this idiot said that caught my attention was that Trump deserved our support because he was self-financed and didn’t depend on lobbyist and corporate financing.
Well, that has never been true and it is well known that a great number of CEOs and corporations have coughed up more than pocket change to put and keep Trump in office. After all, they have made untold millions from his stripping environmental rules and weakening other regulatory policies. The fat cats are getting fatter in Trump’s American cathouse.
Just one quick example of a fat cat helping to finance Trump’s rise to political power is a co-founder of HomeDepot, Bernie Marcus, who has been a long-time major supporter of Republican causes and Trump’s presidency. In 2016 Marcus gave Trump $7,000,000 dollars to help buy MAGA caps and “I Know Biggly Wurdz” t-shirts.
On yesterday’s morning’s Morning Joe, Joe’s rant focused on Corporations and CEOs who have been ardent supporters of Trump. In light of the shootings at Gilmore, El Paso, and Dayton, Joe seriously demanded that these fat cats come forward and either admit that they support Trump’s white supremacy politics or that they denounce both him and white supremacy.
Scarboro didn’t call for any boycotts but maybe that’s the way to take the pork chop away from these far-right extremists, national boycotts of major corporate Trump supporters. I don’t know if boycotts are very successful, the only one I can recall working was when the United Farm Workers started a boycott of table grapes back in the ’70s. The grape growers finally caved and the UFW got much of what it was after. Oh, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott was successful. And then there was the boycott that forced Ivanka Trump to close her fashion empire doors. Then there was Sea World being forced to retire their herd of Shamus and Nike’s taking action regarding its use of Asian sweatshops. So, apparently, boycotts can work.
Nevertheless, if you’re interested in organizing such an effort or just want to have your own list of boycotted companies, as I have done for years, here’s a link to a current list of companies on the Do Not Do Biz With List. It’s interesting to note, however, that according to the people in charge this list has shrunk as a result of boycotting efforts. So again, maybe boycotts do work. After all, they contributed to getting Bill O’Reilly off of Fox News.