Scott Galloway Gives An Update on His Anti-Trump Boycott Push to Inflict ‘Maximum Damage’
Scott Galloway, the marketing professor and entrepreneur turned popular podcaster, gave an update this week on his “Resist and Unsubscribe” boycott push to try to push corporate America to stand up to the Trump administration. Galloway is urging Americans to engage in an economic boycott of major corporations that he sees as enabling the Trump administration, like Amazon and Apple.
Galloway joined outlets like CNN and MS NOW earlier in the week to pitch his boycott movement and gave an update on his podcast, Pivot, about how its going.
“’Resist and Unsubscribe February’ has begun. How’s it going? You’ve been putting up a lot,” began co-host Kara Swisher on the show’s most recent episode.
“You’ve been really getting rid of shit. I’ve been getting rid of a lot, but not like you. I still have Uber,” Swisher said, adding, “I was just going to pause it and use Lyft instead.”
“Yeah, it sucks when you got to walk the walk,” Galloway replied, adding:
So, I mean, you’d be a better judge of how it’s going than me. I’ve literally gotten hundreds and I’m about to cross a thousand emails of people with screenshots of them unsubscribing. Obviously, you need hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. I’m going on CNN, MSNBC, PBL, I’m doing the rounds there.
“I think it’s taken off. I have to tell you, I’m hearing it from lots of people,” Swisher added.
“Oh, thanks. I hope you’re right. You’re probably being generous because you like me, but I’ve heard from about a third of the companies, either they’re CEOs, and they’ve been very polite, but they’re like, you realize that I supported this and I’m against I’s and I’m like, yeah, to me you are, but I haven’t heard you say d*ck publicly. What’s interesting is through the process, for example, I unsubscribed from Uber or I cancel my Uber account,” Galloway continued.
“That was a big one. I thought that was a big deal,” Swisher agreed as Galloway went on to explain how he realized just how often he used Uber in recent years – adding up to $34,000 a year.
As the conversation continued, Swisher pressed Galloway on just how far he was willing to go to put pressure on these companies that he sees as enabling the Trump administration, “May I ask a question? Cause someone didn’t bring this up. Would you get rid of your stocks in these companies?”
“Oh, that’s a tough one,” Galloway replied.
“I know, that’s what I thought. I thought it was a good question,” Swisher agreed.
“Okay, this is the bottom line. I think I’m gonna have to. I’m also thinking about transferring all of my stocks and bonds and assets from Goldman and going either to a regional bank or even a Canadian bank,” Galloway continued, adding:
I just don’t wanna hurt Americans, but I think I might go to a regional bank. But I am gonna try and walk the walk here, and every day I’m unsubscribing or canceling from something. But yeah.
Ended the discussion on the topic, Galloway offered his “bottom line”:
What I’m suggesting is this is a signal and a framework for how you inflict the maximum damage with the minimum amount of sacrifice. That is, if you were to say stop shopping at Kroger’s and reduce your grocery spend, I think you have X impact.
When you go after Big Tech who has the presidents and the markets here and subscription revenue where these companies are trading at 30, 50, 100 times revenues, you have 40X the impact on the administration with what is, in my view, a fairly minimal sacrifice when you look at how many substitutes there are, and when you actually uncover how much money you’re spending, and what is really required to not participate. It’s not as much as you think. There’s the tube, there’s UberX, there are a ton of streaming media platforms, there are free 30-day Spotify accounts if you cancel and then resubscribe.
Watch the clip above via YouTube.
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