Business Blog: Resist and Unsubscribe

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Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, was arrested today. Targeting journalists is not about enforcing the law, but shaping reality. History reflects a brutal truth: When you begin arresting journalists, your nation becomes angrier and poorer.

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After the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, many people feel powerless. Praised by tech CEOs, surrounded by sycophants, emboldened by multimillion-dollar settlements, and enriched by his return to the White House, Trump marches on unchecked. Americans, however, have overlooked a potent weapon of resistance. First, we should recognize that the president is unfazed by outrage and unmoved by protests. What does he care about? A: The markets. The best strategy is to opt out. We're asking you to join a monthlong national economic strike, a coordinated campaign that targets tech and AI companies and inflicts maximum damage with minimum impact on consumers.

Ripple Effect

Protesters are playing a critical role in challenging Trump's war on the "enemy within" and documenting the activities of his masked, heavily-armed, and poorly trained paramilitary force. But until the Republicans lose their grip on Washington and the president's acolytes can be held accountable — and in some cases put on trial — the opposition needs bold new methods.

We're not talking about a labor strike. It's easy for me to tell other people to stop working and take the risk of getting fired; that kind of walkout would only hurt small businesses and probably lead to more job losses. We're also not urging local businesses to sacrifice sales and close their doors for a day, a symbolic but ultimately ineffective tool. We're proposing something quieter and less cinematic than a protest that will run all day on cable TV, but much more disturbing to the Trump administration. A one-day slowdown is irritating. A one-month slump is terrifying.

With support for abolishing ICE growing and a bipartisan backlash prompting Trump to at least feign a more conciliatory approach in Minnesota, this is the moment to exert pressure. If you need inspiration before joining the movement, look at photos from the September meeting at which tech industry CEOs, including OpenAI's Sam Altman and Apple's Tim Cook, took turns fawning over the president. These are the leaders who have his ear. A modest reduction in their companies' growth could have a substantial impact on valuations priced to perfection. Small changes in consumer behavior — starting on the first day of February — could have an enormous ripple effect, one that extends all the way to the White House.

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We need to get tactical. If consumers cut back on cosmetics, reducing L'Oréal's revenue by 2%, it's not going to make a difference. If OpenAI's revenue falls by 2%, it will. America's economy is one giant bet on AI, with seven tech companies representing more than a third of the S&P 500. That means the best way to ignite positive change, without hurting consumers, is to carry out an economic strike the tech CEOs can't ignore.

Unsubscribing to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude are among the first steps. Although only 5% of ChatGPT's more than 800 million users last year paid for a subscription, a pullback would sting. If enough people cut spending on AI, it could spill over to other companies, including Nvidia and Microsoft. You could also unsubscribe from a range of other tech offerings — Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Uber — and hold off on buying your next iPhone or Mac. While tech and AI are the main focus, the strike could expand to target companies enabling ICE, including AT&T, Dell, and Fedex, which have contracts with the agency. (See all the options on the Resist and Unsubscribe website.)

Then document your decisions on Instagram — we'd target this platform, too, but we need some way to spread the message nationwide. Talk to your friends and outline what you're not buying, adding cancelation screenshots and unsubscribe selfies. Articulate the objectives: forcing the president to end the occupation of cities by masked agents, respect the rule of law, and uphold American values. And yes, I'm participating.

If wealthy households reduce spending by 10% and middle- and lower-income households pull back by about 5% in a targeted economic strike, it will curb U.S. GDP virtually overnight, amplifying the impact while mitigating the harm to average American consumers and business owners. And just as Dry January offers an opportunity to scale back on alcohol, a February freeze on subscriptions and other purchases provides a chance for people to reset their consumption patterns. Use the month to review your subscriptions and drop the ones you don't use.

You may decide this isn't for you, or conclude it would hurt innocent people. I get it. Punishing America's economy isn't an act we propose lightly. But pain for some U.S. tech businesses in the short term could inspire real change — a small price for restoring our democracy.

Consumer Power

Consumers, whose spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, wield enormous power. Few things worry leaders more than a decrease in their purchases. Consumer spending fell 3.4% during the Great Recession — at the time, the most severe year-over-year decline since World War II — and 9.8% during the second quarter of 2020, in the depths of the pandemic. Those events sparked two of the fastest political movements in history, with the U.S. spending huge sums to escape each crisis. In the case of Covid, economic data, not the death toll, was the main driver.

Americans in the top 10% income bracket, who account for about half of all consumer spending, play an especially important role. In outlining this idea in October, I estimated that those consumers could achieve a 1% decline in GDP with a 3% cut to their spending (setting aside multiplier effects, import leakages, and substitutions).

If we want to know how Trump might respond, consider recent history. After the president unveiled his "Liberation Day" tariffs last April, the ensuing turmoil in the bond market prompted the administration to pause most of its planned tariffs for 90 days. Bond investors were getting "yippy," as the president explained. Wall Street soon had a term for this phenomenon — the TACO trade, for "Trump always chickens out."

Earlier this month, Trump threatened to punish European nations if they didn't cave to his demands to give him Greenland. Then the markets threw up, and the president reversed course, announcing he'd reached the "framework of a future deal" for Greenland and the Arctic. Stocks surged on the news.

Fortune 500 CEOs need to organize to resist the president as he bulldozes the values that make America great. Understandably, nobody wants to go first or be alone on this, but it's the right thing to do. It also presents an opportunity to reap reputational and commercial gains. I feel for businesses in Minnesota — victims of the administration's cruel and reckless immigration policies — and collective action is the way to go. But the letter signed by 60 CEOs of companies based in the state, including Best Buy, Target, and UnitedHealth, calling for state, local, and federal officials to "work together to find real solutions," while positive, isn't going to move the needle.

Cowardice

Republicans could stop Trump … if they had a spine. The CEOs of America's largest corporations could also show up, but don't hold your breath. If you're waiting for these leaders to overcome their fear and share-price idolatry in the face of threats from the president, you're going to suffocate. Trump put everyone on notice last week with his lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, over allegations that the company stopped providing banking services to Trump and his businesses for political reasons after he left office in 2021. Bosses of big corporations know that won't be the last battle the president wages, so rather than antagonizing him, they flatter Trump and keep their heads down. Without real pushback, things are likely to get worse.

You'd think that the death of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse Trump officials accused of being a "domestic terrorist," would have been a tipping point for business leaders. Yet on Saturday, hours after federal agents killed Pretti as he attempted to help a woman who'd been pushed to the ground and pepper-sprayed, CEOs including Cook and Amazon's Andy Jassy attended a private White House screening to celebrate the Amazon MGM Studios-produced documentary Melania.

The courage is coming from the rank and file. Following Pretti's death, more than 450 tech workers from Amazon, Google, Meta, OpenAI, Salesforce, and other companies signed a letter urging their CEOs to contact the White House, demand that ICE leave American cities, and cancel all company contracts with the enforcement agency. A senior executive at OpenAI, James Dyett, wrote on X that there was more outrage from tech executives over California's proposed wealth tax "than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets." Exactly.

Protest vs. Nonparticipation

As Heather Cox Richardson and other historians note, there are many ways to make a difference in dark times. She points out that Minnesotans are doing their part — patrolling the streets, donating food, helping with legal services, and looking out for one another — while organizations at the national level speak up. Voters in the midterm elections in November, meanwhile, will have a chance to dilute Trump's power.

Until then, the best tool we have to push CEOs to take on the president and prevent further erosion of the American brand is in our pockets — an economic strike that builds on calls for Apple boycotts that are already starting to emerge. Real change always comes from the American people, not from our political parties. But power doesn't fear protests nearly as much as economic withdrawals. Getting off your couch, taking to the streets, and building community is important, but the most radical act in a capitalist society isn't marching, it's not spending.

Life is so rich,

P.S. Resources to help you participate in our Resist and Unsubscribe campaign and maximize your impact can be found here.

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