Stern professor and online influencer Scott Galloway encouraged people to stage an “economic strike” to protest the Trump administration’s escalation of immigration enforcement across the country, saying that “a very small change in behavior could have an enormous effect” on policy.
“If you want to understand real power and the difference between being right and being effective, stop watching protests and start watching gross domestic products,” Galloway said on his podcast Pivot, where he reviews major events in business and technology with co-host Kara Swisher. “Trump does not respond to outrage, he responds to markets.”
On the podcast episode, Galloway — a marketing professor who has garnered 1.6 million Instagram followers for his commentary — discussed immigration agents’ fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti. Galloway and Swisher spoke about ways to effectively respond to the Trump administration’s mass deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country.
The comments from Galloway, also a best-selling author with six books on topics such as personal finance, tech companies and masculinity, come amid a series of nationwide demonstrations against ICE violence. Among them, NYU student groups have organized protests condemning killings of Pretti and Renée Good by ICE officers in Minneapolis this month.
NYU’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society staged a walkout in Washington Square Park on Friday to demand an end to ICE activity in New York City, and plan to hold a second protest in the park on Tuesday. SDS member Ebtesham Ahmed told WSN that while he agreed with Galloway’s calls for an economic boycott, demonstrations could be critical to mobilize activists.
“I know many people who attended different protests, and after that, they joined an organization or even started their own organization,” Ahmed said. “That first protest that many people — who might have never done anything political other than maybe vote — attend, they get plugged in. It’s a really important step.”
Galloway declined WSN’s request for comment.
Contact Zachary Karp at [email protected].