This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
Americans have long expressed their political views with their wallets.
In recent months, this is ramped up with boycotts and with boycotts, that's where people express support by buying a company's products.
For months now, Nordstrom has been on a list of Trump affiliated companies to boycott.
This is just.
It's a wonderful line.
I own some of it.
I fully.
I'm gonna just give it.
I'm gonna give a free commercial here.
Go buy it today, everybody.
I deleted Uber recently due to what happened at JFK airport, when it appeared that Uber was essentially trying to break.
The strike, fueled the outrage and led to some people to call for a boycott of the airline.
It seems like people are a little fed up and disillusioned with sort of conventional political channels where they would normally sort of express their political views.
And so in the absence of that legitimacy, there's been sort of a rise in political consumerism.
Neeru Paharya is a marketing professor at Georgetown University.
She studies how consumer behavior often serves psychological needs rather than economic needs.
When we think about the way we spend money, we may think about the comfort of a nice pair of shoes or the pleasure of a great meal.
But money also serves a deeper purpose.