Corporations enabling Trump’s corruption deserve ‘pocketbook justice’

Corporations have acquired far too much power in the United States. The Supreme Court has given them the same rights as individuals, but without citizens’ responsibilities. The court also allows companies to buy influence by pumping unlimited anonymous cash into political campaigns. Meanwhile, our transactional president seems to peddle favors to corporate donors as if government were a garage sale.  

It’s time for the people to act. 

First, elect a Congress willing to investigate and punish grift, graft, pay-to-play government, bribery and extortion.

Second, boycott the companies that have capitulated to President Trump, enriched him and helped him destroy important institutions.

Here are three suggestions. 

First, expand the No Kings campaign. The mass demonstrations against Trump’s monarchical proclivities could turn their attention to the kingmakers: the companies that enable him with money and capitulation.

Corporations are not immune to market forces, as Disney and ABC found last year when they pulled comedian Jimmy Kimmel off the air. A 2019 study published in the Southern Economic Journal examined 125 U.S. consumer boycotts between 1978 and 2017. It found statistically significant negative effects on the stock market performance of targeted companies.

Second, we must widen the fossil fuel divestment movement. Since 2011, the divest-reinvest movement has urged investors to sell fossil fuel shares and invest in clean energy. So far, more than 1,700 institutions representing nearly $41 trillion in total managed assets have signed up.   

One objective is to revoke the “social license of the fossil fuel industry” by highlighting how the fuels harm........

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