There’s been a lot of buzz on the Sagebrush Telegraph lately about folks wanting to boycott a legislator’s business to protest his politics. Freedom Caucus Rep. Ocean Andrew has some fish & chips food trucks based in Laramie, and has sponsored a bill that has drawn a tide of opposition.
Opponents of his bill are starting a boycott of his business to protest his politics. But hankies are being twisted and pearls clutched by his supporters who claim that business has nothing to do with politics. They characterize the boycott as a “political dirty trick.”
I beg to differ. Business has everything to do with politics, and vice versa.
I’ll paraphrase Thomas Jefferson in his letter to John Landon, March 5, 1810, when he said, “Money, not politics, is the principle of commerce of civilized nations.”
The cornerstone of a democratic society such as ours is that nobody has enough control over the individual citizen to tell him either how to vote, or how to spend his money. Both dollars and votes are sovereign to the individual, and equally valid expressions of the individual’s political will.
The biggest difference, as I see it, between voting with ballots and voting with dollars is that you can only cast a ballot once every couple years, but you make spending decisions every day. And every economic decision you make is an expression of your political will, if you want it to be.
So, I have to chuckle when I see someone go all bug-eyed over the possibility of a politician suffering economically over his politics. What could be more free-market, capitalistic and American than that?
Now, let’s look at the question from the politician’s perspective. Said politicians must only worry about facing the wrath of the votary during a re-election campaign, every two to four years. They can, and often do, skate through most of their terms fat, dumb & happy, knowing that they can patch things up in the district, and win re-election by throwing a Hail Mary late in the fourth quarter when the game is on the line.
That breeds complacent politicians who lose touch with their constituents with relative impunity. It leads to frustrated voters who can only get their representative’s attention every couple years.
Some folks will claim that’s how we end up with the political “swamp,” populated with out-of-touch elites with election certificates.
If a politician suddenly realized that voters could talk to him through his wallet, on his bottom line, through a boycott of his business, perhaps he’d be a little more responsive. As I said, those immediate economic decisions by voters are made every day of the year.
And the idea is nothing new. A couple years ago, former GOP Representative and Freedom Caucus fire-eater, Jeannette Ward, called for a boycott of businesses that sponsored a Pride Fest. So the Freedom Caucus has no room to weep, wail and gnash their teeth when folks call for a boycott of a member’s business.
Regardless of whose ox is getting gored, or which goose gets gandered, I’m all in favor of economic activism as expressions of political disfavor. We need to thank our lucky stars and our grizzled old Founders that we enjoy the freedom to vote with our dollars. We should use that freedom every chance we get.
This is, by no means, “cancel culture” or “dirty tricks.” This is basic economic decision-making in a free market economy. This is taking advantage of the freedoms available to us in the United States to use our ballots and our dollars to influence the world around us at the bottom line.
This is citizenship, pure and simple.
Rod Miller can be reached at: RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com
