Above, Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher explain how everyday Americans can push back against government overreach—by focusing on the economic decisions they make each day. “Trump does not respond to outrage. He responds to markets,” says Galloway. Ergo, it’s time for an “economic strike,” a “short-term coordinated withdrawal from spending.” He continues: “if wealthy households took their spending down 10% and middle class and lower income households … took it down 5%, you would take GDP negative almost overnight.”
But he also gets more specific than that: “If you wanted the fastest blue line path … I believe if you could convince America, the entire economy now is built on AI… if you could convince a bunch of Americans to cancel their ChatGPT or OpenAI accounts and all of a sudden OpenAI had to announce that their subscriptions had fallen off a cliff, that would ripple into Nvidia. That would ripple into Microsoft. And these are the people that Trump cares about.”
He goes on to add: “If you could figure out a way to basically kick a small number of companies related to the tech economy that account for 40% of the S&P right now … if all of a sudden, if you took all of your money out of any JP Morgan–affiliated bank and transferred it to a local regional bank, if you cancelled all of your streaming media platforms, if you cancelled OpenAI and Anthropic and you said “I am not upgrading my Apple phone,” and there was a real movement that registered and they had to disclose it in their earnings calls — this would come to an end pronto.” CEOs would stop bending their knees and suddenly find their voice.
Every dollar we spend—or withhold—sends a signal to the market and to Trump. When enough people hold back, the power of the purse can do what courts and elected officials cannot. Trump reversed many tariffs after markets freaked out on ‘Liberation Day.’ What’s to say it wouldn’t work again?
