The resounding wins of this year’s election deserve celebration. Americans showed the world that we want leaders who will stand up for working people, not bow down to the demands of billionaires; leaders who will honor our constitution, not aid and abet the lawlessness, cruelty and corruption of the MAGA regime.

As critical as elections are, history has shown that we can’t just rely on elections – or the revelation of scandals – to take down an authoritarian regime. We the people must continue engaging in non-violent resistance and refusing to submit to autocratic demands.

One critical tool we can wield in this fight is economic pressure. The American civil rights movement demonstrated the power of economic boycotts to drive change. 

During the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56, about 99% of the usual 15,000-20,000 Black riders joined together and refused to patronize a bus system that discriminated against them. Communities organized sophisticated carpooling systems that enabled them to sustain the boycott for over a year, culminating in the desegregation of public buses.

In Nashville, Tennessee and Birmingham, Alabama, activists organized boycotts of all segregated and discriminatory businesses. Bustling downtown areas became deserted. Previously thriving businesses struggled without the profits they made from the Black community and their allies.

Fearing for the survival of their businesses, white business owners desegregated their own establishments and pressured politicians to pass desegregation laws. Time magazine called the boycotts “devastatingly effective.” 

At the start of the boycotts, this fight might have seemed hopeless. Activists were up against a firmly entrenched racist power structure: the Ku Klux Klan was bombing Black schools and churches and terrorizing Black neighborhoods in their attempt to re-establish white supremacy; many state and local police officers were collaborating with the KKK and violently attacking peaceful protestors; Jim Crow laws made discrimination legal across the South. Still, Black people harnessed their collective economic power and enacted change.

Just recently we saw another strategic consumer boycott forcing change to seemingly entrenched power. On Sept. 17, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened ABC/Disney’s license over comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer. Rather than standing up for freedom of speech, Disney bowed down to this threat and suspended Kimmel’s show indefinitely.

In response, 1.7 million people cancelled their Disney subscriptions and the company’s market value plummeted by nearly $4 billion. Six days later, Disney reinstated Kimmel’s show.

The Disney boycott showed that we, as consumers, have the power to influence major corporations. We sent a message to all corporations that caving in to the MAGA regime’s demands, rather than standing up for our constitutional rights and freedoms, can devastate a corporation’s bottom line. 

The MAGA regime’s worst nightmare is that those of us who oppose the MAGA takeover of our government will recognize the power we hold collectively to drive change. So let’s spread the word about some new boycotts.

Indivisible is spearheading a boycott of Spotify, a music streaming service that is running recruitment ads for ICE. The ads use fearmongering language against immigrants – all while masked ICE agents are actually out terrorizing neighborhoods and kidnapping people off the streets. 

Cancel Spotify is urging people to cancel their paid subscriptions until Spotify terminates all ICE and DHS advertising contracts, updates its advertising policy to prohibit government propaganda and hate-based recruitment campaigns, and commits to defending civil rights and standing up for communities under attack.

Other pro-democracy groups are organizing a We Ain’t Buying It campaign, encouraging people to boycott Target, Amazon, and Home Depot from Thanksgiving through Cyber-Monday. The boycott is aimed at Target for ending their initiatives to promote diversity and racial equity after Trump began attacking DEI programs; Home Depot, for allowing ICE agents to kidnap laborers from their stores; and Amazon, whose former CEO Jeff Bezos has donated over $1 million to the MAGA regime.

Instead of giving our hard-earned dollars to these ultra-wealthy corporations that are bolstering the Trump regime, let’s shop at small, locally-owned businesses and those that affirm our humanity. Let’s support local artists and artisans by shopping at holiday markets across our region, including the Whovillage Christmas Market and Annual Craft Fair in Parachute, Holiday Market in Rifle, Holiday Bazaar in New Castle, Holiday Bazaar in Glenwood Springs, and Deck the Walls in Carbondale.

In the last two months, we’ve demonstrated the power of the people by cancelling Disney subscriptions in defense of freedom of speech, participating in the largest single-day of peaceful political protest in our nation’s history, electing pro-democracy candidates, and passing pro-democracy ballot measures. The momentum for saving democracy is building; keeping up the pressure is essential. The current boycotts are an easy way to do that.

Shop local; cancel Spotify; boycott Target, Amazon and Home Depot, especially from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday; and urge all of your friends and relatives to do the same. 

Debbie Bruell of Carbondale is a former chair of the Garfield County Democrats and is a past member of the Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education.