Some Trump supporters had an idea for a boycott that is actually the opposite of a boycott. It goes like this: instead of keeping your money inside of your pocket, you give it to the business you wish to protest. In this case, the lucky corporation is Starbucks.
The catalyst seems to be a viral video that surfaced showing a Trump supporter going off on a Starbucks barista on Wednesday, and calling her “trash.” The yelling man claimed the woman refused to serve him because he’s a Trump supporter. According to the Washington Post, a witness said the man got mad because his drink order was taking too long. This happened in Florida.
That gave this guy the idea to take some action on Friday morning:
By Friday afternoon, operation #TrumpCup (which only happens to sound like a euphemism for sexual assault) had been tweeted 27,000 times, according to CNN. Starbucks is truly rolling in it.
Is this strategy counterintuitive? Yes, but its outcome has also been antithetical to what to the protesters’ goals. Unless you ask the guy who started it, according to whom everything I just wrote is “fake news.”
Timothy Treadstone, the 29-year-old political consultant who apparently started the campaign, told USA Today that people who claim the campaign is a “protest” or “boycott” are misinformed, because, in fact, it is a “social experiment” the purpose of which is to “keep Starbucks accountable.”
Imagining caffeine-depleted Trump supporters barking vainly into the hungry void of corporate America has at least given my some perverse pleasure this morning.
It occurs to me that many of Trump’s supporters may not have an altogether clear grasp of the term “boycott”, as they are now “boycotting” Hamilton, a show that is sold out until the end of time.