In America, we vote once a year—but we buy every day. The truth is, in a nation where political institutions feel increasingly distant and ineffective, our most immediate influence is often economic, not electoral. If democracy is the voice of the people, then consumption is its echo—loud, daily, and hard to ignore.

That’s why it’s time to rethink consumer behavior as more than just personal preference. It’s speech. It’s protest. It’s collective action. And it's one of the few remaining ways ordinary people can bend powerful institutions to the public good.

But like free speech itself, economic speech is only meaningful if people have the tools, protections, and infrastructure to use it well. That’s where the next administration can lead—not by scolding Americans about their choices, but by empowering us to make them freely, ethically, and strategically.

Here’s where to begin:

We’ve written before about the promise of a national service program—one that unites young Americans around shared civic purpose. Now imagine one track of that service focused on economic organizing, digital advocacy, and civic consumerism.

Participants could help local communities audit public contracts, expose monopolistic pricing, advocate for government transparency, or support small businesses. Others could help organize economic campaigns aligned with American values: anti-corruption, fair labor, democratic resilience. We’d be building not just civic virtue—but civic capacity.

To seize the power of the market, Americans need to understand the game. That means teaching digital literacy as a core civic skill—not just how to spot a scam or protect a password, but how to understand algorithms, online ecosystems, pricing transparency, subscription traps, and the anatomy of a modern boycott.

We must build a generation of strategic consumers—people who understand that behind every convenience is a contract, and behind every contract is power.

Right now, every click, tap, and purchase is monetized by someone—just not the consumer. We deserve more than terms-and-conditions fine print. We deserve legal rights to our behavioral data and meaningful consent around how it’s used.

A National Consumer Data Rights Act would:

In short: if we’re the product, we deserve the profits—or the choice not to participate.

Companies have weaponized friction. They count on apathy, confusion, and technical barriers to lock people into services they no longer want. That’s not just bad UX—it’s a violation of consumer autonomy.

We propose a Right-to-Cancel Act, requiring:

If we believe in the freedom to choose, we must also protect the freedom to walk away.

We believe the next American era must be built around shared civic power. But civic power in the 21st century isn’t just about town halls or voting booths—it’s about markets, platforms, and purchasing decisions that ripple through the system.

We can’t seize the means of production—but we can seize the means of consumption. And we should. But to do that well, we need policy—not just protest.

We’re not interested in performative boycotts or partisan consumer campaigns. We’re interested in tools that allow Americans to make informed, intentional choices—and in government that recognizes that when people act together economically, they are speaking loudly.

The question isn’t whether consumption is speech. The question is: Will we listen?