1. Buy Only Non-Tariffed Goods
Fifty years ago, Ithaca, New York’s CO-OP Supermarket found a way to support Cesar Chavez’s United farmworkers Union (UFU) while still satisfying customers’ food and political preferences. It offered two bins of lettuce, one labeled “Farmworkers Lettuce,” the other labeled “Teamster Lettuce.” The battle to unionize lettuce pickers was being waged between the UFU and the management-backed Teamsters Union.
A number of grocery stores around the country adopted the same approach. In one of the earliest manifestations of serious political polarization, Democrats tended to favor UFU lettuce while Republicans opted for the Teamsters’ variety.
Today, shaken as we are by Donald Trump’s lunatic, on-again, off-again tariff insanity and ensuing, self-defeating trade war with the rest of the world (notably excepting Vladimir Putin’s Russia), retailers across-the-board (both onsite and online) have an opportunity to reinvent the lettuce protests of the 1970s. They could label products as either “Tariffed goods” or “Non-Tariffed Goods” and let their customers choose which to purchase.
This is by no means a perfect analogy to what happened 50 years ago. My recollection was that UFU lettuce, like tariffed goods, was slightly more expensive than Teamster lettuce, reflecting the higher wages and superior benefits negotiated by the UFU for its members.
2. Don’t Hire Law Firms That Kiss Trump’s…Whatever.
To date, Trump’s illegal executive orders singling out law firms for retribution because they “wronged” him in some way have succeeded to a much greater extent than I believed possible, given how vigorously they traditionally advocate on behalf of their clients. He has coerced many of his target firms, as well as others who have trampled all over one another in their eagerness to placate him, to abandon their equal opportunity hiring and promotional policies, and extorted more than a billion dollars in free legal services for the administration and him personally.
I wrote about this in Rant 836. Since then, however, Trump has expanded his mafia-like bullying of the legal community and the list of supine firms knuckling under to his blackmail tactics has expanded.
A few firms so far remain defiant and are fighting Trump’s intimidation in the courts. The law is on their side and they should prevail in their cases.
Firms willing to resist are the only ones businesses and individuals should consider engaging. If they are bold enough to go up against a wannabe totalitarian, you know that they will fight like hell for their clients. As for those firms that have given in to Trump’s terrorizing efforts, they are certainly not going to adequately represent their clients. Existing clients of these firms should sever their engagements with them. Prospective clients should look elsewhere for representation.
Georgetown University law students have compiled an extensive list of both the courageous firms and the feckless “Coalition of the Cowards” who have doormatted themselves to Trump. The list includes not only the most prominent firms (a.k.a., “BigLaw”), but also hundreds of smaller firms that cater to individual as well as corporate clients.
The link for the Georgetown list follows:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1J_bcoMqt46L05As7GN4ZqH4j6XKeI-Dm4ytJPRFtrwo/htmlview#gid=287708862
3. Boycotts.
Add to this that we can boycott the products and service offerings of companies that have surrendered to any of Trump’s illegal demands.
While these three resistance suggestions are admittedly modest in scope and likely effect, they are at least something. They partially fill the vacuum caused by the Reichstag Republicans who don’t dare squeak a peep against the tyrant at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the perplexingly silent Democrats who flail aimlessly about without any coherent strategy for opposing the death of our republic.
Note. Today is the 250th anniversary of the "shot heard round the world" that was fired at Lexington Green.
Dick Hermann
April 19, 2025
Fifty years ago, Ithaca, New York’s CO-OP Supermarket found a way to support Cesar Chavez’s United farmworkers Union (UFU) while still satisfying customers’ food and political preferences. It offered two bins of lettuce, one labeled “Farmworkers Lettuce,” the other labeled “Teamster Lettuce.” The battle to unionize lettuce pickers was being waged between the UFU and the management-backed Teamsters Union.
A number of grocery stores around the country adopted the same approach. In one of the earliest manifestations of serious political polarization, Democrats tended to favor UFU lettuce while Republicans opted for the Teamsters’ variety.
Today, shaken as we are by Donald Trump’s lunatic, on-again, off-again tariff insanity and ensuing, self-defeating trade war with the rest of the world (notably excepting Vladimir Putin’s Russia), retailers across-the-board (both onsite and online) have an opportunity to reinvent the lettuce protests of the 1970s. They could label products as either “Tariffed goods” or “Non-Tariffed Goods” and let their customers choose which to purchase.
This is by no means a perfect analogy to what happened 50 years ago. My recollection was that UFU lettuce, like tariffed goods, was slightly more expensive than Teamster lettuce, reflecting the higher wages and superior benefits negotiated by the UFU for its members.
2. Don’t Hire Law Firms That Kiss Trump’s…Whatever.
To date, Trump’s illegal executive orders singling out law firms for retribution because they “wronged” him in some way have succeeded to a much greater extent than I believed possible, given how vigorously they traditionally advocate on behalf of their clients. He has coerced many of his target firms, as well as others who have trampled all over one another in their eagerness to placate him, to abandon their equal opportunity hiring and promotional policies, and extorted more than a billion dollars in free legal services for the administration and him personally.
I wrote about this in Rant 836. Since then, however, Trump has expanded his mafia-like bullying of the legal community and the list of supine firms knuckling under to his blackmail tactics has expanded.
A few firms so far remain defiant and are fighting Trump’s intimidation in the courts. The law is on their side and they should prevail in their cases.
Firms willing to resist are the only ones businesses and individuals should consider engaging. If they are bold enough to go up against a wannabe totalitarian, you know that they will fight like hell for their clients. As for those firms that have given in to Trump’s terrorizing efforts, they are certainly not going to adequately represent their clients. Existing clients of these firms should sever their engagements with them. Prospective clients should look elsewhere for representation.
Georgetown University law students have compiled an extensive list of both the courageous firms and the feckless “Coalition of the Cowards” who have doormatted themselves to Trump. The list includes not only the most prominent firms (a.k.a., “BigLaw”), but also hundreds of smaller firms that cater to individual as well as corporate clients.
The link for the Georgetown list follows:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1J_bcoMqt46L05As7GN4ZqH4j6XKeI-Dm4ytJPRFtrwo/htmlview#gid=287708862
3. Boycotts.
Add to this that we can boycott the products and service offerings of companies that have surrendered to any of Trump’s illegal demands.
While these three resistance suggestions are admittedly modest in scope and likely effect, they are at least something. They partially fill the vacuum caused by the Reichstag Republicans who don’t dare squeak a peep against the tyrant at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the perplexingly silent Democrats who flail aimlessly about without any coherent strategy for opposing the death of our republic.
Note. Today is the 250th anniversary of the "shot heard round the world" that was fired at Lexington Green.
Dick Hermann
April 19, 2025
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