Women Go Viral After Closing Their Accounts at Nordstrom in Support of Ivanka Trump

Over the past few weeks, multiple brands have dropped the Ivanka Trump label in protest of her father’s policies. Yet, as most clearly evidenced by a video shared by Laurie Ray on Facebook, the first daughter still has her supporters.

Ray, along with Sara Salazar Williams, Jeannie Petersen Guthrie, Natalie Poulsen Germaine, Krysta Noel Price, and Amy Llewelyn, recently went to Nordstrom to cancel their accounts with the company. “Dumped #Nordstrom today for Dumping Ivanka! This is how it went down… #byenordstrom #buyivanka,” reads the caption of the video, which has received 1.2 million views and nearly 18,000 shares since it was posted Wednesday.

The group, wearing matching T-shirts with a black-and-white photo of President Trump and “Haters Gonna Hate” on it, visited a Nordstrom store in Chandler, Ariz., and filmed their experience canceling their accounts with the department store. “Because they caved, no money for Nordstrom,” one of the women said. “Headed to Dillard’s to buy all kinds of stuff,” another said.

“I was actually a former employee for a number of years and I’ve been shopping at Nordstrom’s for 30 years, and because of your decision to drop Ivanka Trump, I will no longer shop at your store, nor will my husband or our nine children or our eight grandchildren,” Ray was captured saying to customer service.

In response to the video, Guthrie shared a lengthy post on Facebook thanking those who responded kindly. “We had no intent of ever entertaining anyone other than our few fb friends/family and enjoying a good time together as girlfriends. I am thrilled to find that we were not alone in this cause and that thousands and thousands and thousands of others were doing the exact same thing as us,” she wrote. However, the attention that the video has received has also meant that the women have been criticized. “As our posts reached ‘viral’ status, trolls and haters found us. They decided to play dirty. It is disheartening to see so many fellow Americans and especially women make such awful comments to people they do not know,” Guthrie continued. “I love everyones [sic] right to disagree, but I do not love anyones [sic] choice to spew undue hate. We are strong women. We stand for the things we believe in. Opposition will not change that in us, no matter the level of UGLY they show.”

These women aren’t alone. The hashtags #BoycottNordstom and #BuyIvanka are flooding social media, even after presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway apologized for urging viewers to support Ivanka Trump’s line during a Fox News interview. “Go buy Ivanka’s stuff is what I would tell you,” Conway said last week. “It’s a wonderful line. I own some of it. I fully — I’m going to just, I’m going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.”

Many on Twitter ridiculed Nordstrom for being petty, with one woman regretting her recent shopping spree. “Bad move, Nordstrom! You just lost a customer that spent over $11K at your stores just in 2016.” Others vowed to fill their closets with Trump-branded clothing. On Instagram, anti-Trump protests were chalked up to publicity stunts.

Blaming “poor sales,” Nordstrom announced that it was pulling Ivanka Trump merchandise from its stores on Feb. 3, shortly after President Trump signed an executive order to halt immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. Nordstrom said it had given Ivanka Trump notice in January and denied caving in to pressure after topping the #GrabYourWallet hot list, a grassroots movement to boycott companies that sell Trump products.

Still, the president took it personally, tweeting, “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!” White House press secretary Sean Spicer followed up with “This is a direct attack on his policies and her name.”

The result of the president’s tongue-lashing was a 7 percent increase in Nordstrom stock. According to CNN Money, the department store’s stock price had reached $46 by last Thursday, up from $42.65 before the tweet, and has remained in that range.

Yet grassroots boycotts have been around for decades, and research shows that they generally don’t harm a company’s bottom line, only its public image — “in part because the activists are not typical consumers of their target companies’ goods,” writes Brayden King at Fortune. “For example, animal rights activists who belong to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would not frequent the fast-food restaurants they often urge consumers to avoid. In addition, consumers tend to be fickle and unwilling to part from their favorite products and services to support a boycott, even when they are ideologically aligned with its goals.”

Some companies aren’t even waiting to be boycotted — they’re jumping into the fray and clarifying their political positions. Reebok just released a “Nevertheless She Persisted” T-shirt — a battle cry sparked by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who last week was silenced by the Senate after attempting to read a letter by civil rights activist Coretta Scott King while opposing the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general. And the CEO of menswear company Under Armour has praised President Trump as a “highly passionate” and “pro-business president.”

Whatever your political views and fashion preferences, boycotts seem to be here to stay. Eighty-one percent of consumers say they’ll make personal sacrifices to stick to their morals, according to recent research. There’s never been a better time to expand your style horizons!

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