US activists want to shame nominee

WASHINGTON: Disturbed by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, US activists have taken out online advertisements, circulated petitions, put up billboards and even chipped in for an airplane banner to shame companies into not sponsoring the Republican National Convention in July.

The campaign, led by the political arm of Californiabased advocacy group Color of Change, seeks to weaken Trump’s White House bid by pressuring companies to skip the Cleveland convention where he is expected to become the nominee.

“The fact of the matter is that any employee of these Fortune 500 companies that are sponsoring the convention, if any of those employees went into their job and said the things Donald Trump is saying, they’d be fired,” said Rashad Robinson, spokesman for Color of Change.

Minority groups and others have been outraged by Trump’s rhetoric and positions on immigration, including proposals to temporarily ban Mus- lims from entering the country, deport millions of immigrants who enter illegally and build a wall along the Mexican border.

The anti- Trump effort, which has yielded mixed results, has included letters to executives of more than 30 companies including Coca-Cola and Apple, and conversations with officials at Amazon, Hewlett-Packard and others.

With Coca- Cola, Color of Change circulated a petition accompanied by images showing a soda bottle labelled “Share a Coke with the KKK.” The Ku Klux Klan, or KKK, is a white supremacist group.

Companies sponsor conventions for a variety of reasons. Some are local and want to show support. Others hope to make an impression with elected officials or to display their brands on a nationally televised event.

Color of Change placed billboards in San Francisco showing Trump in a red baseball cap emblazoned with “Make America Hate Again,” a play on the candidate’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. – Reuters

PICTURE: AP The presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump poses with a piper as he arrives at his revamped Trump golf course at Turnberry, Scotland yesterday.