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Building on the momentum of consumer boycotts against Target and other companies earlier this year, grassroots organizers want American consumers to use their economic power this Thanksgiving weekend to protest the Trump administration’s anti-immigration and anti-DEI crackdowns – and the big corporations that won’t oppose them.
The We Ain’t Buying It campaign – organized by many of the groups behind the No Kings protests – is asking Americans to stop shopping at Target, Home Depot and Amazon on Black Friday, one of the busiest retail days of the year, while also encouraging people to shop local and support community businesses.
“We are reclaiming our power. We are redirecting our spending. And we are resisting this rise to authoritarianism,” said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, one of the groups spearheading this action.
Organizers see We Ain’t Buying It as an economic pressure campaign that fits into the broader civil resistance against the president’s agenda. It joins other economic protests launched during the Trump era, including an ongoing boycott against Target for rolling back its DEI policies and an uptick in people cancelling their Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions after ABC’s suspension of late-show host Jimmy Kimmel.
Consumer activism, including boycotts, can bring meaningful attention to causes, experts said. But whether something like We Ain’t Buying It can prod governments or institutions to change positions depends on what organizers seek to achieve – and how sustained and visible the public pressure.
“They’re effective not so much because they actually reduce sales that much,” said Nien-hê Hsieh, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. “But it’s really about calling attention and putting the company in the spotlight.”
What is We Ain’t Buying It?
We Ain’t Buying It is targeting three companies, though organizers said they hope to send a message to all businesses willing to cower to the Trump administration.
On the list is Amazon, which has already faced buying blackouts from groups like the People’s Union USA for donating to Trump’s inaugural fund and reaping major corporate tax cuts. Home Depot is also a target because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reportedly singled out their properties for immigration arrests. Protesters have gathered outside Home Depot locations in US cities such as Charlotte and Chicago to push back against the immigration raids. (Home Depot spokesperson George Lane told the Guardian that the company “isn’t notified that immigration enforcement activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations”.)
Action is also directed at Target for its rollback of its DEI goals, something that has already inspired sustained consumer boycotts this year, especially by Black activists and consumers. In its third-quarter earnings, Target reported a 1.5% drop in net sales, and its stores recorded a 2.2% decline in foot traffic. In August, Target announced its CEO was stepping down, citing inflation, tariffs and the boycott for slipping sales. The company just had its first major layoffs in a decade.
Organizers plan to keep adding pressure. In addition to Black Voters Matter, groups such as Indivisible, 50501, Until Freedom and the Working Families party have not only helped organize the boycott, but have also been behind the larger civic movements against the second Trump administration. Brown said since the We Ain’t Buying It launch earlier this month, more than 80 other groups have signed on to participate, including labor unions.
“We’re hoping that the millions of people that participate in this will have a higher level of consciousness of that we have choice, that our money gives us choice,” Brown said. “That means that we have power and that we can make choices to demand better.”
The weekend boycott begins on Thanksgiving, when the motto is “Don’t spend a dime, spend time with your family,” Brown said. Organizers encourage people not to shop at all on Black Friday, unless it’s at small or local businesses. Shopping locally is also the goal for Saturday. Sunday is focused on mutual aid, and Cyber Monday will be a “cyber shutdown”, Brown said, meaning no online shopping.
“We have people who are deleting their apps,” Brown said. “We’re going to cancel subscriptions. We’re not buying anything.”
What is the goal of the boycott?
The We Ain’t Buying It organizers see this campaign as bigger than a boycott of these specific companies. The campaign is asking participants to reinvest back into their communities and pledge to be conscious consumers. They’ve released a toolkit for partners, and are encouraging people to post on social media.
Even if We Ain’t Buying It ends after Monday, organizers see this economic pressure as one of the many tools to deploy to counter the Trump administration and protect American democracy. “It’s actually a relay race.It’s a hand-off between different actions and different groups,” said Hunter Dunn, national press coordinator for 50501.
Dunn said that includes mass mobilizations, like the recent No Kings protest, as well as local organizing, mutual aid and consumer activism, such as boycotts.
“We need to push back against this administration and the billionaire elites backing it,” Dunn said. “This is just one piece of a larger puzzle.”
How effective are these kinds of consumer boycotts?
We Ain’t Buying It joins a tradition of Black Friday protests that have sought to raise awareness about everything from the climate crisis, to worker and labor rights, to overconsumption. These actions can raise the salience of these issues, especially among would-be shoppers who care about these causes.
“We’ve had Black Friday boycotts since Black Friday has been around,” said Emily E LB Twarog, associate professor at the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“‘Don’t buy on Black Friday’ because of how workers are being treated in big box stores or around anti-sweatshop campaigns, and now in response to Trump and ICE. I think that they’re worthy of doing, I just don’t know how systemically effective they are.”
Experts say how successful these efforts are can be difficult to measure – and it can depend a lot on the organizers’ goals. If the aim is to cut into a company’s sales or force it to change its practices, that can be much harder to achieve, especially for digital or one-off protests. But if the goal is attention, consumer activism can be very valuable.
“Is it to raise awareness right about these things, so that people have a deeper understanding and maybe make some political decisions based on that knowledge?” Twarog said. “Then I think it’s highly effective because you’re able to share that information.”
Economic activism can help change the practices of governments and institutions, whether it’s the farm workers strikes of the 1960s, or the anti-apartheid boycotts against South Africa in the 1980s, or even the anti-sweatshop protests against Nike in the 1990s. But as Paul Sergius Koku, professor emeritus at Florida Atlantic University College of Business, said: “It has to be sustained over time, and you have to give reasons for people to buy into it.”
That requires spreading awareness and attention beyond eager activists to include a wide range of participants willing to sacrifice – even by just paying higher prices – for a cause. Plus, Koku said, companies don’t just sit back and take it; they could also do their own public relations or lower prices to counter the opposition.
Twarog said she expects that the economic impact of many of today’s consumer boycotts are likely regional or localized, possibly in communities most affected by Trump’s policies, such as hers, in Chicago, where ICE is conducting raids and the national guard is deployed. But retailers like Amazon and Target are huge companies that have faced pressure and backlash before. As Twarog put it: “Is it just the cost of doing business – withstanding these trends?”
When a democratically elected president acts undemocratically, how do you hold him accountable? It isn’t easy. Most leaders — even those who attempt to hold power through coups — evade justice. But there are exceptions. Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was convicted last year of leading a coup plot after his failed reelection bid in 2022. He is now serving a 27-year prison sentence. Last week, former South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to five years for charges relating to his imposition of martial law in late 2024.
In the new issue of the Journal of Democracy, Luciano Da Ros and Manoel Gehrke reveal what it takes to bring an authoritarian justice, focusing on the example of Bolsonaro. Also, check out our coverage of Yoon’s failed attempt to impose martial law and how South Korea got to such a dangerous moment.
How to Bring Authoritarians to Justice Brazil did something that few democracies achieve: It convicted a former president of attempting a coup. How did the country’s courts hold would-be autocrat Jair Bolsonaro accountable when so many other coup plotters go unpunished? Luciano Da Ros and Manoel Gehrke
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey speaks during a press conference to address the media following reports that the Trump administration will be targeting Somali immigrants in the Twin Cities, held at City Hall in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Tuesday, December 2, 2025.
(Photo by Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)
“The best way to get safety is not to have an influx of even more agents and, in this case, military in Minneapolis,” Mayor Jacob Frey said.
Responding to the news that the Department of Defense had put 1,500 active duty troops on standby for a potential deployment to Minnesota, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had a clear message for the Trump administration: “We will not be intimidated by the actions of this federal government.”
“This act was clearly designed to intimidate the people of Minneapolis, and here’s the thing: We’re not going to be intimidated,” Frey told Jake Tapper on CNN‘s “State of the Union” Sunday morning.
The news of the troop deployment was first broken by ABC and confirmed to the Washington Post late Saturday night. It came two days after President Donald Trumpthreatened to invoke the Insurrection Act due to widespread protests against a major federal immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities that has already led to the death of legal observer Renee Good and the shooting and injuring of Venezuelan migrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
It is not certain that the soldiers, who belong to two Alaska-based infantry battalions, will actually be deployed. The White House said it was typical for the Pentagon “to be prepared for any decision the President may or may not make.”
“I never thought in a million years that we would be invaded by our own federal government.”
However, if they were deployed, Frey told Tapper it would be “ridiculous.”
“The best way to get safety is not to have an influx of even more agents and, in this case, military in Minneapolis,” he said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on reports the Pentagon has put hundreds on troops on standby to send into Minneapolis:
"This act was clearly designed to intimidate the people of Minneapolis. Here's the thing, we are not going to be intimidated." pic.twitter.com/sqpiurMr24
Frey told Tapper that the situation that Minneapolis found itself in was “bizarre.”
“I never thought in a million years that we would be invaded by our own federal government,” he said.
However, he praised the response of ordinary people in the city: “One of the beautiful things that’s taking place is that the people here in Minneapolis are not just resisting. They’re standing up. They’re standing up for their neighbors, they’re loving people, they’re making sure that they’ve got a ride to the grocery store, a safe walk to their car. They’re making sure that they have those basic necessities that they need, because we’ve got a whole lot of people who are afraid to go outside at the risk of getting torn apart from their own families.”
“In the face of a whole lot of adversity, I’m so proud to be from Minneapolis. I’m so proud to be the mayor of this awesome city with these extraordinary people,” Frey said.
The news of the potential military deployment came the day after the revelation that the Department of Justicewas investigating Frey as well as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz over their criticism of federal immigration enforcement operations in the Minneapolis area.
Frey also spoke out against this second form of intimidation.
“If it were true, the targeting would be the product of performing one of the most basic responsibilities and obligations that I have as mayor, which is to speak on behalf of our great city, speak on behalf of our constituents,” Frey told Tapper. “And that the federal government would be going after me because of that speech should be deeply concerning not just for people in Minneapolis, but for anybody throughout the country.”
Jake Tapper asks Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey if he has received a subpoena as the Justice Department launches probe into him:
"We have not received anything. I am not aware of specific allegations. But if it were true, the targeting would be the product would be of performing… pic.twitter.com/a7JeF3XJlD
In addition to a potential federal deployment of the military, Gov. Walz also ordered the Minnesota National Guard to mobilize on Saturday.
“They are not deployed to city streets at this time, but are ready to help support public safety, including protection of life, preservation of property, and supporting the rights of all who assemble peacefully,” the Minnesota Department of Public Safety wrote on Facebook.
Tapper asked Frey if he was worried about a situation in which ICE, CBP, and the military might end up physically fighting with the Minnesota National Guard and local law enforcement.
“We can’t have that in America,” Frey answered, adding that he hoped the judicial system would step up to restrict the Trump administration from invading American cities. Already, a federal judge has ruled that ICE must not retaliate against, pepper spray, or detain peace protesters and observers in Minnesota, and there are other lawsuits pending against the deployment.
Frey also appealed to people across the country.
“I know that you love your town, regardless of where you are,” he said. “And just imagine what it would feel like if you suddenly had an administration deployment of troops, of agents come into you city by the thousands, vastly outnumber the police department, and cause chaos on your streets.”
Frey added that there was a very simple way for ICE to resolve the situation.
“If the goal here is to create peace and safety and calm, there’s a very clear antidote here, which is leave,” he said.
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A Border Patrol Tactical Unit agent sprays pepper spray into the face of a protester attempting to block an immigration officer vehicle from leaving the scene where a woman was shot and killed by a federal agent earlier, in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Wednesday, January 7, 2026.
(Photo by Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)
“This is an important preliminary win for all Minnesotans exercising their constitutional right to peaceful protest and witness,” state Attorney General Keith Ellison said.
Federal officers cannot retaliate against, detain, or attack people who are peacefully protesting and observing immigration enforcement operations in the Minneapolis area, a federal judge ruled on Friday.
The ruling comes a little more than a week after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed legal observer Renee Nicole Good, supercharging protests against an immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities that the Department of Homeland Security claims is its largest ever.
“This is an important preliminary win for all Minnesotans exercising their constitutional right to peaceful protest and witness,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellisonwrote on social media in response to the ruling. “Thanks and congratulations to the ACLU and the plaintiffs for standing strong for this bedrock principle.”
The ruling was issued by Biden appointee and US District Judge Kate Menendez, who is based in Minneapolis. It restricts federal officers involved in “Operation Metro Surge”—an immigration-enforcement blitz in the Minneapolis area—from retaliating against, arresting or detaining, or targeting with nonlethal munitions such as pepper spray anyone “engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity,” including observing ICE operations.
“We are relieved that in Tincher v. Noem et al. the court has issued a preliminary injunction. The ACLU-MN is hopeful that it will prevent further First Amendment violations like the ones that have been harming Minnesotans since the start of ‘Operation Metro Surge.’”
Menendez further stipulated that people could not be detained for following ICE and other immigration enforcers with their vehicles if they were not interfering with the agents.
“The act of safely following Covered Federal Agents at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop,” Menendez said.
The ruling is a preliminary injunction in response to Tincher v. Noem et al., a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota (ACLU-MN) in December 2025 on behalf of six community members who said their constitutional rights were violated by ICE in response to their protests.
Plaintiff Susan Tincher, for example, wrote that she was arrested merely for driving to the place where an ICE operation was taking place.
“I was on a public street,” Tincher in a statement. “I did not cross any lines. I did not interfere with anything. I did not disobey an order. I asked a single question–’are you ICE?’–and almost immediately, officers rushed me, grabbed me, and slammed me face-first into the snow.”
Since the lawsuit was filed, ICE activity in the Twin Cities continued to escalate, culminating with an influx of 2,000 agents on January 6 and the shooting of Good the next day.
On January 8, the day after Good’s murder, the plaintiffs’ lawyers sent an emergency letter to the judge urging action.
“Thousands of peaceful observers and protesters turned out in the streets of the Twin Cities in the wake of Ms. Good’s murder,” the letter reads in part. “Peaceful observers and protesters turned out again today, they will turn out again tomorrow, and they will continue turning out every day until Operation Metro Surge is over. These Minnesotans who are peacefully exercising their core constitutional rights to speak and gather continue to be met with unconstitutional and terrifying violence at the hands of federal agents on a daily basis, including unwarranted pepper spraying and unfounded arrests… And things appear to be getting worse, not better: Even more federal agents are being deployed to Minnesota at this very moment.”
The ACLU-MN applauded the fact that Menendez had moved to restrain ICE.
“We are relieved that in Tincher v. Noem et al. the court has issued a preliminary injunction. The ACLU-MN is hopeful that it will prevent further First Amendment violations like the ones that have been harming Minnesotans since the start of ‘Operation Metro Surge,’” the group wrote on social media.
Beyond Good’s killing, the ruling follows several other high-profile incidents of ICE violence in Minnesota, including a nonlethal shooting of a man at a traffic stop and the hospitalization of three children after ICE tear-gassed the van they were driving in.
Menendez’s decision came the same day that news broke that President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice was investigating local leaders who had criticized ICE activity, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
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Newly available videos and existing footage synchronized and assessed by The Times provide a frame-by-frame look at how an ICE officer ended up shooting and killing a motorist in Minneapolis.
Congress are negotiating federal spending bills that will determine whether ICE and Border Patrol receive more funding or face real limits. These decisions are being made in the coming days.
6. Tell DHS to immediately release the three Oglala Sioux men in ICE custody now
– Includes Free BART & MUNI info (e passes etc for event)
The 2026 MLK March is a poignant and symbolic journey that pays homage to the historic Selma to Montgomery marches and the monumental Voting Rights Act of 1965. Spanning 1.5 miles, this commemorative march and parade begins at San Francisco’s Caltrain Station and winds its way through the heart of the city, ultimately culminating at the serene Yerba Buena Gardens.
Thousands of participants, representing diverse backgrounds, join together in unity, echoing the spirit of solidarity that defined the civil rights movement. As the march progresses, it becomes a living tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s unwavering dedication to justice and equality.
3. Monday, 12:30pm – 1:30pm, No Monarch’s Monday: Weekly Protest at Tesla in San Francisco
At the Tesla Dealership, 999 Van Ness (corner of Van Ness and O’Farrell SF
No Monarchs Monday (the butterflies are ok). Join us to stand up for democracy, civil liberties, and the planet, and against the fascist/authoritarian Trump Regime! ICE OUT FOR GOOD! NO WAR IN VENEZUELA! Bring a sign if you have one.
Featuring: Mahmoud Khalil, Germán González, Hatem Bazian, and Tori Porell
Moderated by Loubna Qutam
As the new year begins, the student movement for Palestine is facing its first felony trial for a 2024 demonstration at Stanford University. If convicted of the felonies brought against them, the Stanford 11 face the possibility of over three years in prison and over $300,000 in restitution to Stanford University. On January 9, 2026, opening arguments commenced, marking the beginning of a lengthy trial anticipated to last between two to six weeks.
In recent years we have witnessed the criminalization of dissent ramp up nationwide, threatening both students and everyday people with detention, deportation, and political prosecutions. The chilling effect on our movements has been palpable, raising questions about what it means to act and sacrifice for our principles today. Amidst heightened repression, the US government’s increasing impunity at home and abroad, and the genocide in Gaza still unabated by a ‘ceasefire’—how can we continue to act in solidarity and defend our movement?
5. Tuesday, FREE AMERICA: No Fascism! No Ice! Nationwide Walkouts, Protests & Boycotts
See Events # 6 & 7 for San Francisco & Oakland events. Actions in other areas are listed on Indybay and https://www.freeameri.ca
On January 20 at 2 PM local time, we will walk out of work, school, and commerce. We will withhold our labor, our participation, and our consent. A free America begins the moment we refuse to cooperate. This is not a request. This is a rupture. This is a protest and a promise.
Walkout. Boycott the billionaires – do not shop online or in person at mega stores. Join a protest.
6. Tuesday, 4:00pm, San Francisco: Stop ICE Terror and End Trump’s War on Venzuela
Meet at:
Civic Center Plaza, 335 McAllister St SF
ON JANUARY 20 – JOIN THE NATIONWIDE SHUTDOWN
On the one year anniversary of Trump taking office for the second time, millions of people across the country will walk out of work and school and take to the streets in opposition to the Trump administration’s racist, billionaire program. Trump has employed ICE and the military as his personal army against the working class at home and abroad in places like Venezuela. We refuse to allow them to operate with impunity!
Post on Indybay by PSL – but many groups are also organizing for this.
7. Tuesday, 5:00pm – 7:00pm, Oakland: Stand for Good! Protest March Against Fascism at Lake Merritt
Starting point:
The Pergola at Lake Merritt 599 El Embarcadero Oakland
Bring signs and banners. Please NO candles.
5:00pm – gather
5:15pm – walk
On Jan 20th we encourage you to participate in the Free America Walkout Event and then convene at Lake Merritt to stand in community with others who fight this regime with non-violent actions of public resistance.
Public actions of non-compliance look different for everyone. We invite you to bring your lantern or flashlight, a sign, noisemaker or whatever moves you.
Stay tuned for updates, we are planning many different activities that include: a march around Lake Merritt a Oak4Good t-shirt making station, chalking art activities, and so much more to channel your energy for GOOD.
9. Wednesday, 6:00pm – 7:00pm , Monthly Gathering at Alex Nieto’s Altar
Bernal Hill Site near where Alex was murdered SF
MUNI # 67
All are welcomed to join Alex’s parents Refugio and Elvira Nieto on the 21st of each month as they remember Alex. It’s been over 11 years since Alex was killed.
On March 21, 2014, Alex was murdered by SFPD officers Jason Sawyer, Richard Schiff, Nathan Chew, and Roger Morse, with 59 bullets.DA Gacon (at the time) declined to file criminal charges against the officers. DA Jenkins let the attorney go who was working pm the case under Chesa Boudin.
There is still no justice for SFPD’s execution of Alex nor of any other victims of SFPD’s executions.
Friday, January 23
10. Friday, 3:00pm – 5:00pm, Solidarity with General Strike Minneapolis, Rally in Palo Alto
855 Embarcadero corner of El Camino Real and Embarcadero Palo Alto 94303
This Friday we protest with singing, chanting and sign waving to call attention to the fact that ICE is our communities. We’ve got signs but bring your own if you can.
Our brothers and sisters in Minneapolis are getting savaged right now by domestic terrorists who instead of doing 10 to 20 in a federal prison have been given masks and badges and guns and carte blanche to wreak murderous, violent havoc in that fair city.
In response, unions and activists and community groups are calling for a general strike in Minneapolis on Friday Jan 23rd.
11. Friday, 4:00pm, ICE Out Of MN-Support MN Gen Strike! Shut ICE Down NOW! SF Support Rally
California State Building 350 McAllister St. SF
The fascist military occupation of Minneapolis and Minnesota is being opposed by unions and labor with a general strike on Jan 23. This occupation is aimed at crushing the working class and people of Minnesota and then expanding to other cities. Trump is preparing for martial law to stop any further elections using the Insurrection Act. The Democrats and Courts will not stop this fascist and his billionaire techno fascist cronies who are running the government. Unions in NYC and other cities are calling for rallies on the same day and we need rallies and a general strike nationally.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom is backing up ICE and says that it should not be abolished despite the murder of Renee Good and the terrorism of these goons. The murderous methods of this gestapo operation is also being expanded with the $170 billion passed in his budget.
We also need to demand the withdrawal of all US troops and military abroad. These imperialist wars are financed by both the Democrats and Republicans who passed a trillion dollar budget and now Trump is preparing for more wars abroad by expanding the military budget to $1.5 trillion. WE need to unite our struggles and the way to shut down the fascist government is a mass national strike action closing the entire country.
By Joe Garofoli,Political Columnist Jan 18, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)
Gift Article
Saikat Chakrabarti, a candidate for Congress, is one of the few California politicians publicly challenging the assertion that a proposed tax would push billionaires to leave the state.Scott Strazzante/Associated Press
As Democrats struggle to figure out how to regain power, many are seizing on populist positions — except when it comes to a proposed tax on California billionaires, which would affect about 200 people in a state of nearly 40 million.
The measure — which has not yet qualified for the ballot — would impose a one-time, 5% tax on the total value of the net worth of Californians whose wealth totals more than $1 billion. It is intended to backfill federal budget cuts that the California Medical Association predicts will strip 2.5 million Medi-Cal enrollees and up to 660,000 Covered California participants of health care coverage and eliminate 217,000 California health care jobs.
For the past four decades, it has been hard to persuade the poorest 99% of Americans to raise taxes on the other 1%. Much of that has to do with a federal campaign finance system that allows the wealthiest Americans — and corporations and labor unions — to give unlimited amounts to candidates. As a result, politicians have been too gutless to tax their biggest donors.
In California, many Democrats have couched their opposition by arguing the tax would push wealthy entrepreneurs to leave the state, starving the budget of their businesses’ revenues and thus negating the impact of the tax. Experts, however, say that sort of mass billionaire exodus is unlikely.
Some billionaires, such as Google co-founder Larry Page, did take steps to leave the state before Dec. 31. But some politicians and economists say the billionaires are largely bluffing. Why would they leave? They’ve been making a mint here. A UC Berkeley report on the tax found that “studies of how the super wealthy respond to tax changes find that very few super wealthy residents actually uproot their lives and move due to tax.”
UC Berkeley economics professor Emmanuel Saez, an adviser on the ballot measure who helped design a wealth tax proposal for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign, told me: “Billionaires are a group that has done extraordinarily well in California in recent years.”
“They have over $2 trillion in wealth as of Jan. 1, 2026,” said Saez. “California billionaire wealth grew 30% in 2025, 40% in 2024, 40% in 2023, hence more than doubling in the last three years.”
Saez noted a crucial provision of the tax that makes the argument over a Great Billionaire Flight of 2026 somewhat moot: The proposal would impose the tax based on residence status on Jan. 1, 2026, meaning it’s already too late to move to avoid it. It’s still possible, though, that some would move out of spite.
Saikat Chakrabarti, a House candidate in San Francisco who is worth an estimated $167 million from his time as a founding engineer at Stripe, said that the “mega-rich won’t even feel a one-time 5% wealth tax. They just got a massive handout from Trump.”
Chakrabarti, who is running to succeed Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco, is one of few Democrats who’s publicly challenging the billionaires’ threats to leave.
“Billionaires are always threatening to leave for Florida or Texas — and then they come back,” Chakrabarti told the Chronicle. “The billionaires rely on us, not the other way around. I don’t believe the same billionaires who routinely lose tens of millions of dollars betting on failed startups so they can find one unicorn will suddenly stop investing here because of a tax.”
House members who represent Silicon Valley, home to many tech industry billionaires, are split. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Santa Clara, supports it. Reps. Sam Liccardo and Zoe Lofgren, both D-San Jose, oppose it. Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-San Mateo, is “still studying it.”
Liccardo said that the “proposed measure isn’t sensible” because “taxing unrealized gains irreversibly undermines the innovation economy, repelling startup founders and the venture capital that sustains them. Any decision by California leaders to tax unrealized gains ensures that California’s largest taxpayers become Texas’ largest taxpayers.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has many allies in the tech world, aggressively opposes the plan. “On a state level, this is not something that will allow us to be competitive,” he said during an appearance in San Francisco on Friday. He pointed to a report by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office predicting “it is likely that some billionaires decide to leave California. The income taxes they currently pay to the state would go away with their departure. … This would mean less money for the state’s general budget that supports education, health care, prisons, and other services.”
“It may have its populist appeal as a headline. I deeply understand that, and I get the politics of it intimately,” said Newsom, a likely candidate for president in 2028. “But read the initiative, understand what it does at a state level.”
Meanwhile, Chakrabarti’s opponents in the race for Congress are also split: San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan backs the tax, while state Sen. Scott Wiener is undecided.
Wiener, who has supported progressive wealth taxes and estate taxes in the past, said he is waiting to see what is officially on the ballot. There will probably be ballot measures asking voters to support taxes for public transit and bonds for affordable housing. There also may be a measure asking voters to make permanent an existing 2012 voter-approved tax rate for high-income Californians, which is currently set to expire in 2031.
“There are various revenue measures that are being discussed for next year — including at the local level, where we’re going to have two different tax measures to save public transportation,” Wiener said.
Similarly, other Democrats — nodding to the LAO analysis — say they want to tax billionaires but worry the tax may “backfire,” as Lofgren put it.
Lofgren told the Chronicle: “I’m not at all sympathetic to the billionaires whining about possible taxes, but it’s not at all clear to me that the proposed ballot measure would work and not backfire. There’s other reforms that can ensure everybody pays their fair share, and I’m evaluating those options.”
She declined to describe those options.
State Sen. Josh Becker, D-Palo Alto, opposes the tax, noting that California has a progressive tax system that is reliant on the state’s highest earners.
“Why would we want to drive those people out of our state by taxing money they MIGHT make?” Becker said.
Like Becker, Newsom fears that the tax will inspire wealthy residents to leave the state, robbing not only the state’s progressive income tax structure of their taxes but possibly their businesses, too.
But Saez, co-author of the book “The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay,” said taxing billionaires is not taxing their businesses. “For example,” he said, “Mark Zuckerberg owns about 13.7% of Meta. If he sells 5% of his stake to pay the tax, nothing of substance changes for the business operations of Meta.”
Newsom’s opposition to the tax is similar to the two top Republicans running to replace him — former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.
“California’s problem will not be fixed by taxing people merely because they’re successful,” Bianco said. “By taxing billionaires, billionaires will leave, the jobs they create will leave, and we will further destroy the middle class.”
Hilton made the same case: “When job creators leave, the jobs go with them. So does the tax base that funds schools, infrastructure and essential services.”
Joe Garofoli is the San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer, covering national and state politics. He has worked at The Chronicle since 2000 and in Bay Area journalism since 1992, when he left the Milwaukee Journal. He is the host of “It’s All Political,” The Chronicle’s political podcast. Catch it here: bit.ly/2LSAUjA
He has won numerous awards and covered everything from fashion to the Jeffrey Dahmer serial killings to two Olympic Games to his own vasectomy — which he discussed on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” after being told he couldn’t say the word “balls” on the air. He regularly appears on Bay Area radio and TV talking politics and is available to entertain at bar mitzvahs and First Communions. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and a proud native of Pittsburgh. Go Steelers!
Federal immigration officers are seen near the scene where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, January 13, 2026, in Minneapolis. Credit: John Locher/AP Photo
ICE has frequently been labeled as America’s own Gestapo, but that’s not the only historical antecedent that we should invoke. It’s also, I would submit, a resurrection of the Klan, but this time with de jure, as opposed to de facto, state power.
In its second flourishing—roughly 1915 through 1929—the Klan expanded to Northern states and directed its violence and threats of violence against not just Blacks but also Catholics and Jews, all of whom they saw as threatening the white Protestant essence of the United States. They were the tip of the nativist spear, which in 1924 led Congress to restrict immigration to the overwhelmingly white Protestant nations of northwest Europe.
The ads that the Trump administration is running to bolster recruitment to ICE’s ranks are pitched to white nationalists. One borrows the lyrics of a white nationalist ballad, which promise that “We’ll have our home again” if only we can restore it to its pre-immigrant purity. One social media posting shows a classic car parked on a beach, under the words “America After 100 Million Deportations.” In this case, the mythic past that fascism always invokes is that of the Beach Boys circa 1964—white teens on white beaches.
Getting to 100 million, of course, means it’s not just immigrants but most of non-MAGA America that stands athwart our recapturing of white hegemony. By that standard, the killing of Renee Good was, if not exactly official policy, at least well within the administration’s meta-policy (i.e., conforming to Stephen Miller’s hatreds).
So how can we stop the violent maraudings of our 21st-century Klan? At the state level, some Democratic legislators have introduced legislation that would at least ban state police agencies from hiring ICE employees and former employees. At the congressional level, another federal spending authorization to keep the government open will come before Congress later this month; in theory, at least, the government will have to shutter most of its doors again on January 30. Could the Democrats refuse to pass it unless it defunded ICE?
Not in the House, of course, since the Republicans hold a small majority sufficient to prevail over any Democratic modifications. But it requires only 41 of the Senate’s 47 Democrats to keep a bill from clearing the Senate’s 60-vote cloture threshold.
And the public’s opinion of ICE has tanked since they began raiding homes, workplaces, and communities last June. An Economist/YouGov poll released Tuesday afternoon shows that the share of Americans who support abolishing ICE has risen from 27 percent to 46 percent over the past year (with 43 percent opposed); 77 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of independents are ICE abolitionists. Other polling from YouGov shows that ICE had a net approval rating of +16 percentage points one year ago; today, it’s at -13 percentage points, with 62 percent disapproving (40 percent strongly disapproving) against 39 percent approving.
There are, of course, complications when it comes to abolishing ICE. For one thing, Trump has assigned a host of agencies to serve as deportation cops, including Customs and Border Protection agents who by now are functionally indistinguishable from ICE agents on their patrols. For another, it’s clear that Trump would happily transfer funds from, say, the Defense Department to fund ICE if it were abolished, or put ICE agents on the DOD payroll. Ultimately, it will require a Democratic Congress and president, I fear, to make Trump’s deportation thugs stand down.
There are also political complications. Polling shows overwhelming support for the deportation of undocumented immigrants who’ve been convicted of violent crimes; last March, a Pew poll found that position commanded the support of 97 percent of Americans. But the percentage who supported the deportation of all undocumented immigrants was one-third of that: a bare 32 percent.
I’d be hugely surprised if there were 41 Senate Democrats who are willing to shut down the government unless ICE is abolished. There are swing states and swing districts where that stance could reduce the Democrats’ chances of victory, and of retaking Congress—the latter being the most certain way of curtailing our 21st-century Klansmen. But 41 Senate Democrats can probably be found who would impose conditions on the Department of Homeland Security as to who could be deported and who couldn’t be, along with some restrictions on our daytime night riders. Today, the Congressional Progressive Caucus adopted a policy of opposing new funding for immigration enforcement within DHS “unless there are meaningful and significant reforms to immigration enforcement practices.”
As the Democrats plainly have to do something, and as ICE abolition almost surely isn’t in the cards, asserting themselves on deportation policy and deportation tactics in ways that actually make a difference would, well, actually make a difference.
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In an article from our last print issue, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger argue that liberals will not succeed in making dirty energy expensive, and should instead focus their effors on making clean energy cheap: What happened next was indeed a dress rehearsal, just not the one the environmental movement…December 1, 2008
Americans across the country are protesting federal agents’ violent crackdown on immigrant communities and on dissent, support for doing away with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement entirely is at an all-time high in the wake of an officer’s killing of a legal observer, and the outrage is intensifying just as the Democratic Party has negotiating power ahead of a January 30 deadline for funding the government.
A number of Democrats, however, are hesitant to leverage their position in the appropriations fight to rein in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the agencies it controls, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which oversees Border Patrol.
That reluctance, said journalist Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo, should result in primary challenges for “every Democrat who wants to fund and still support ICE.”
As Common Dreamsreported Wednesday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which includes nearly 100 Democratic members of the US House of Representatives, said clearly that it would “oppose all funding” for federal immigration enforcement agencies in the upcoming appropriations bills unless, as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said, “meaningful reforms are enacted to end militarized policing practices.”
The House and Senate are currently negotiating a dozen spending bills to keep the government running past the January 30 deadline, and each bill must garner at least 60 votes to pass in the Senate.
A DHS funding bill was already excluded from a spending package earlier this week amid outcry over the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis and the agency’s violent treatment of demonstrators, bystanders, and even residents who are not involved in protests against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
But at the Bulwark, Joe Perticone reported Tuesday that a number of Democrats in the Senate expressed doubt that they would treat ICE funding in appropriations bills as a red line to force the administration to drastically change its approach to immigration enforcement.
“I certainly don’t want see funding increases,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) told the Bulwark. “We’re going through these negotiations right now. I don’t want see that funding… I don’t ever make predictions about where my vote’s coming down on, but what I will say is that I’m certainly gonna fight to stop it.”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) told the Bulwark that she would not want to increase ICE’s budget, which includes $75 billion it was given in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) last year, but said Republicans were “taking the lead on these [appropriation bills].”
“Is this what they want to rubber-stamp for residential neighborhoods across this country?” she asked. “Thousands of masked, armed agents coming into their communities?”
But while criticizing the agency’s practices, she told the Bulwark that discussions about reforming ICE’s enforcement should be separate from the appropriations debate.
“That’s obviously—I don’t wanna get in the weeds—that’s obviously an authorizing committee issue,” she said. “When we’re talking about appropriations, I call on my Republicans… Do they wanna rubber-stamp this or what?”
Organizer and attorney Aaron Regunberg compared the comments—which echoed earlier remarks from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)—to saying: “We are the resistance. We are also negotiating furiously to figure out how to fully fund the Gestapo.”
Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, both Democrats from Nevada, announced their own proposal on Thursday to redirect some of the OBBBA funding to local law enforcement agencies—many of which work with ICE.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, did not make any specific policy commitments regarding what changes ICE and DHS would need to make to ensure funding for immigration enforcement continues, but has suggested that Border Patrol agents should return to the border instead of being unleashed in communities with ICE, agents should be banned from wearing masks and required to wear identification, and federal officers must obtain warrants for immigration arrests.
“You should demand that we make sure that this appropriations process is used to make ICE comply with the law,” Murphy toldTime magazine. “And I see a lot of signs out there—not one additional dime for ICE in this budget.”
Murphy also told NBC‘s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Republicans must decide if they are “willing to shut down the government simply to endorse the most lawless Department of Homeland Security in the history of the country.”
Last fall, the federal government saw its longest shutdown in US history, with funding lapsing for 43 days after Democrats refused to approve a spending package that would have allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire and threatened healthcare for millions. Ultimately, some Democrats caved, and the subsidies lapsed.
Journalist Aaron Rupar said that ahead of the January 30 deadline, “Senate Democrats absolutely have to shut the government down to stop this ICE insanity in the Twin Cities.”
“This is not sustainable and cannot be normalized,” said Rupar. “Any Democratic vote to provide money to the thugs who are brutalizing this community is a grave betrayal to the people here. Accountability can’t wait.”
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This Sunday’s Town Hall: Announcing This Week’s Progressive Town Hall: Every Sunday at 4pm ET/1pm PT RSVP HERE Join PDA activists online from across the country to discuss the importance of progressives reclaiming the American story from the MAGA right, an issue of heightened importance as we’re now within one... Continue reading →
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Milk Club Trans Caucus Meeting Date: Tuesday, April 28 Time: 5-7 PM Location and Zoom Link: Meeting info available to members of the Milk Club Trans Caucus. Please reach out to trans@milkclub.org if you would like to join the Milk Club Trans Caucus.
San Francisco Young Democrats meet with SFDems Chair Nancy Tung Wednesday, April 29th | 2pm Location: SC T-160 (third floor of Student Center) Register The San Francisco Young Democrats at SF State are teaming up with SFDems to make sure their voices are heard. Want to get more plugged into San Francisco... Continue reading →
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