An app to make you a smarter political consumer
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, corporations are people. They have a constitutional right to political speech. Whether you agree with the Court or not, it’s the law of the land. So it’s time we start listening — and responding — to what corporations are saying.
In the wake of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, many people are grappling with the fact that there’s little we can do ourselves to “change the system.” We want to facilitate positive change, but it’s not easy to do.
We try to set good, ethical examples for our children, by doing things such as voting in elections, serving on boards and helping out in our communities. And this works.
But it’s nearly impossible to find the time to look up how our elected officials vote and from whom they receive their campaign funds, much less the political implications of every single purchase we make. After all, we have bigger worries, like whether or not our kids will be safe at school, whether our job is secure, and whether our health care will be affordable.
As members of a capitalistic society, we engage with and thereby support private companies in almost all facets of our lives — from transportation to communication. Yet, after we make our purchases, we rarely know where the money goes, because this information has not been readily available to us.
Goods Unite Us, a startup in Madison, that wants to change the way consumers shop. Why? Because we believe that sooner or later, (and it’s actually happening sooner with companies like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart), companies will need to start listening to consumer requests for change.
Literally, their bottom lines will depend on it.
This is the reason we started Goods Unite Us, a first-of-its-kind e-commerce website and app, to help address this problem and make political consumerism easier. Our Goods Unite Us app features more than 3,000 brands and companies with their political affiliation disclosed via our proprietary Goods Score. Using the app, informed consumers can easily decide which brand of toilet paper or paper towel to keep stocked at home, or which coffee shop to frequent on a daily basis, to ensure that their purchases align with their political beliefs.
The website also allows consumers to shop GOP-free: All goods on the site are made or sold by companies that either overwhelmingly donate to progressive politicians and PACs, or don’t put any money into politics at all. Each of the 28,000-plus products on the site has been vetted, so you can shop without wondering if your toiletry purchases are funding President Donald Trump’s campaign.
Republicans are just as entitled to shop according to their beliefs as Democrats. That’s why we’re also planning to release a shop Democrat-free version of our site soon.
Our company is all about transparency. And until now, the political affiliation of most companies and products has been far from transparent. Koch Industries is a perfect example. During the last two election cycles, Koch Industries and its senior employees have funneled millions to Republican politicians and PACs. Many progressives know this fact, but have no idea which brands Koch Industries makes (Angel Soft, Brawny, Dixie, Quilted Northern, and Sparkle, to name a few).
If consumers start changing their purchasing habits based on their political beliefs, companies will have to think about more than just their regulatory costs when they donate to political parties: they’ll also have to think about how their customers will react. That’s when real change will start occurring.
Let’s not wait until we get a new Supreme Court to get corporate money out of politics. We can force companies’ hands now — by being political consumers ourselves.
Amy Jo Miller is an entrepreneur, writer and a co-founder of Goods Unite Us.