#DumpTrump: Major corporations stay away from the Republican Party’s fascist nominee

Earlier this year, CREDO teamed up with our friends at ColorOfChange as they launched a campaign demanding that corporations take a stand against Donald Trump’s hateful and toxic candidacy by refusing to sponsor the Republican National Convention (RNC).

With the Republican Party poised to coronate Donald Trump as its leader and presidential nominee tomorrow, we thought we’d give you an update on what has turned out to be a remarkably successful campaign.

Thanks to intense pressure from activists like you, in March, Coca-Cola became the first corporation to significantly reduce its contributions from previous years. Coca-Cola’s decision, which was covered widely in a variety of news outlets, opened the door for us to ramp up the pressure on other corporations. ColorOfChange worked behind the scenes, meeting with corporations to make the case for divesting from the RNC, while activists from ColorOfChange, CREDO and other progressive allies kept up the public pressure, showing the depth of support for the campaign.

By all accounts, our campaign to pressure corporations to disassociate their brands from Trump’s toxic campaign has been a huge success as we have turned the RNC into a gathering of right-wing racist pariahs shunned by America’s marquee companies.

At the end of April, Microsoft became the second major corporation to publicly back off from making any cash contributions to the RNC. In the following weeks, Apple, Wells Fargo, General Electric, UPS, Motorola, JPMorgan Chase, Ford, and Amgen all announced that they would not be convention sponsors. Amazon and Hewlett-Packard subsequently joined Microsoft in deciding not to make any cash contributions to the RNC. Even conservative corporate giant Walmart appeared to bow to our public pressure by significantly reducing its contributions from previous years.

The Republican Party had been trying, for months, to downplay the success of our campaign, but just last week, news broke that RNC organizers were reportedly reduced to begging extreme right-wing Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson to make up a $6 million fundraising shortfall. The letter blamed “negative publicity about our potential nominee” for drying up donations and named additional corporations that were either not repeating previous levels of support or had backed out of funding commitments. It was clear validation that our campaign has worked to keep corporations from sponsoring Trump’s hate, and to hold the Republican Party financially accountable for elevating a fascist demagogue as its leader.

We are deeply appreciative of our friends at ColorOfChange. Without their vision and strategic leadership, this campaign could not have happened. We’re also grateful for the activism of CREDO members who supported this powerful partnership. Highlights of our members’ activism include:

• More than 206,000 members signed petitions urging corporations not to lend their credibility and brands to Trump’s racism, misogyny and xenophobia.

• In late April, CREDO organized a petition delivery event at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, during which we – along with our friends at ColorOfChange, UltraViolet, Bend the Arc, Center for Media Justice, Daily Kos, Courage Campaign, and Free Press Action Fund – delivered more than 500,000 petition signatures urging the company not to sponsor the RNC. As the petition signatures were being delivered, a plane flew over Google’s campus with a banner reading, “Google: Don’t be evil. #DumpTrump.”

• After it became clear that Google’s YouTube division would be the official livestream partner of the RNC, we pressured Google on all fronts. CREDO members made almost 5,000 phone calls to key members of Google’s leadership team.

• We also released a hard-hitting online video connecting some of Trump’s most offensive statements with Google’s brand and then targeted more than 10,000 Google employees with Facebook ads promoting the video.

Our activism has clearly worked. Thanks to our collective pressure, we have made sponsorship of the RNC a poisonous prospect for major corporations, and have publicly put on notice the corporations willing to sponsor Trump’s racism and hate.

It’s appalling that Google – along with Facebook, Twitter and AT&T – decided to betray their professed values of diversity and inclusion by putting their corporate stamps of approval on Trump’s hate. In the next few weeks, we’ll be working with ColorOfChange, and our other allies, to continue to hold them accountable, and we know that with Trump as the official nominee, our work to push back against his dangerous platform is only just beginning.

You can help add more voices to this important work, and celebrate the incredible power of our collective activism, by sharing the news of our victories with your friends and family.

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We are grateful for your engagement with the important work we do together and look forward to working together to fight back against Trump’s hate.