Americans who couldn’t defeat President Donald Trump in the voting booth are planning on Friday to fight back — with their pocketbooks.

The People’s Union USA, a movement led by a former drum instructor John Schwarz, organized a 24-hour “economic blackout” that calls on American consumers to make no purchases, especially from major retail, gas, or fast food companies. If people need to buy essentials, they are urged to shop at local, small businesses.

Schwarz said the boycott is meant to send a message to “the elite” that everyday people hold the economic power and to “expose” the corruption of corporations, industries, and politicians. Future weeklong boycotts targeting Amazon, Nestlé, Target, and Walmart are planned from March until July.

“Corporations profit off of our labor while keeping wages low, banks steal billions through inflation and predatory policies, politicians accept bribes disguised as donations while ignoring the people,” Schwarz said in a viral video posted on Instagram. “They have taken everything from us while convincing us we should be grateful of the scraps. And that ends now.”

Consumer-led boycotts aren’t a new phenomena. In fact, they span decades and have grown alongside an increasingly popular theory and social movement similarly aiming to wrest control away from corporations and put it in the hands of the people.

Rooted in the work of American and European political theorists of the 1970s, the “degrowth” movement criticizes a capitalist system that seeks unending growth and profit, which has led to ecological and environmental ruin such as the impacts of climate change. Instead, it advocates for a system that prioritizes the needs of the planet and its people, such as housing, education, and health care. According to Jason Hickel, a leading advocate of degrowth and author of “Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World,” the movement calls for reducing consumption and production of things that harm the planet such fossil fuels, SUVs, private jets, mansions, fast fashion, industrial beef, cruise ships, and the military–industrial complex.

While the term may be unfamiliar to many Americans, its core ideas have cropped up in the Green New Deal’s goals of a post-fossil fuel economy; the pandemic-era phenomenon of white-collar workers voluntarily quitting their jobs and working less; and the recent social media trend of “no buy,” which encouraged people to purchase less and repurpose more.

“People are getting a sense that they’re ripped off, that they’re being taken advantage of and exploited as consumers,” said Aaron Vansintjan, co-author of........

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