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Donald Trump Hates Boycotts Now, Despite Calling For Many, Many Boycotts In The Past

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Esquire

Donald Trump's not the first person who'd come to mind if you were drawing up a master list of consumer champions. A Watchdog reboot starring Trump would be a disaster. He'd have none of the stern authority of Anne Robinson or the t-shirt-and-blazer chumminess of Matt Allwright.

He couldn't even do that face that Nicky Campbell does when he's describing the unscrupulous actions of a supermarket's complaints department, that one where his eyes go really big and he shakes his head a bit. He can't believe Kwik Save would be like this. He thought they'd understand. He really did.

Trump's dipped his oar into consumer affairs again though, and is sticking up for the little guy - in this case, 90-year-old multibillionaire owner of Home Depot Bernie Marcus, who's taken some flak for supporting Trump and is subject to a boycott.

But Trump has either forgotten that boycotting is a tactic he's called for many times in the past or is under the impression that when he calls for consumers to punish corporations he's having a disagreement with, that's not a boycott - that's just natural justice.

The biggest one was his run-in with the NFL over Colin Kaepernick's kneeling protest against Trump himself, of course - "If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our country, you will see change take place fast," Trump tweeted in September 2017 - but lets take a quick spin through his greatest hits. Here we go:

Macy's!

Mexican TV channel Univision!

The rest of Mexico too!

Andy Murray haters Glenfiddich!

Harley Davidson!

Apple!

Italy!

In fact, it was only on 3 June that he called on his followers to boycott CNN: "I believe that if people stoped using or subscribing to @ATT, they would be forced to make big changes at @CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway. It is so unfair with such bad, Fake News!"

The man's boycott-obsessed. He's going to boycott himself into a corner. There won't be a shop or nation state he hasn't banned himself from buying from by about 2030 if he continues at this rate.

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