Whenever a shopowner is already critical of Trump, call them and suggest it directly.
Ask your local cashiers and other store clerks how come the prices rose, and whether that really is all tariffs. Again and again. And ideally so that other shoppers overhear it.
Make angry social media posts explicitly asking the same, explicitly tagging your local store and/or the chain to which they belong, and muse about looking into their competitors.
I get that you want to aggrieve the owners but that last • tactic feeds into Reichwingers absolving Trump. Asking in person, where they have a chance to say, “yes, see this here is the tariffs amount” puts the blame where it belongs (and can also bring price-gouging into the light, because for sure some will happen).
Gouging will happen in every industry, by every corporation. The only ones that might not are locally owned, which has been dwindling since at least the 90s.
It happened with covid, it happened with bird flu, and it’s about to happen the biggest ever with tariffs as the excuse.
Thoughts on how to make this happen:
Whenever a shopowner is already critical of Trump, call them and suggest it directly.
Ask your local cashiers and other store clerks how come the prices rose, and whether that really is all tariffs. Again and again. And ideally so that other shoppers overhear it.
Make angry social media posts explicitly asking the same, explicitly tagging your local store and/or the chain to which they belong, and muse about looking into their competitors.
I get that you want to aggrieve the owners but that last • tactic feeds into Reichwingers absolving Trump. Asking in person, where they have a chance to say, “yes, see this here is the tariffs amount” puts the blame where it belongs (and can also bring price-gouging into the light, because for sure some will happen).
Gouging will happen in every industry, by every corporation. The only ones that might not are locally owned, which has been dwindling since at least the 90s.
It happened with covid, it happened with bird flu, and it’s about to happen the biggest ever with tariffs as the excuse.