Shannon Coulter, a 45-year-old digital marketing specialist in San Francisco, has been using her skills to moonlight as an anti-Trump activist, but lately, that moonlighting has lasted well into the daytime. According to the New York Times, who profiled Coulter recently, as many as 32,000 people visit her website every hour to see her list of all the retailers who carry items from which Donald Trump, his family, or his close supporters stand to profit.
Coulter's site, called Grab Your Wallet is like a boycott cheat-sheet, founded wiith help from Sue Atencio. Together they write of the site's origin that "a brand strategist and a grandmother simultaneously realized they could no longer in good conscience shop at retailers that do business with the Trump family." The list of no-no retailers includes the likes of LL Bean, where a board member raised funds for a Trump PAC, Macy's, who still carry Ivanka Trump clothing and jewelry, and even Bed Bath & Beyond, a retailer of items like Ivanka Trump-branded diaper bags. Also included are customer service phone numbers and email addresses for registering dissent.
“People describe me as an activist in media coverage, I don’t know who they’re talking about,” Coulter tells the Times. “I’ve never done anything this organized or structured or purposeful.”
The activist seems to consider her biggest victory so far to be with Nordstrom, who eventually dropped Ivanka Trump's line amid intense pressure to do so, though reportedly due to lagging sales rather than political pressure. Nonetheless, to show her renewed support for Nordstrom, Coulter showed off a necklace she had recently purchased from the department store.
Coulter also tracks spikes in interest in her boycott activities and has noticed they're tied to unpopular moves made by the President like his executive order banning travel to the US from Muslim countries. That's how this began for her, too: “Something changed for me when the Trump tapes came out,” Coulter recalled to the Independent earlier this month, referring to the Access Hollywood tapes in which Trump said he could force himself on women because he was famous. “Those words were just ringing in my ears,” said Coulter, hence the "grab" in the name of her campaign.
Not to dismiss Coulter's efforts, which she carries out nearly single-handedly, scouring Twitter for tips on companies to add or remove from the list, but it might be a little simpler if Trump were just, I don't know, forced to divest from his business efforts, or if Congress were willing to enforce the emoluments clause or something.
Until then, Coulter plans to keep the pressure on, and her list up to date.
Related: Under Armour CEO Kisses Up To Trump As President Assails Nordstrom Via Twitter