The United States of Amazonia

The late, great comedian Robin Williams once explained why boycotts don't work.  He explained how he and some of his friends wanted to boycott products made in China to protest Chinese abuses of human rights, but they ran into, shall we say, a great wall.  "Damn!  They make everything!" 

Which is why, as much as I'd like to, I can't boycott Amazon, the consumer-product mail-order company founded and run by Jeff Bezos, who has owned the Washington Post since 2013.  When Bezos (above) refused to allow his paper's editorial staff publish an endorsement of Kamala Harris for President to avoid pissing off Donald Trump, who met with executives from Bezos's space-exploration company over possible federal contracts for the firm, all hell broke loose. Post Editor-at-large Robert Kagan resigned, and several editors and columnists for the Post protested vehemently.  (At the same time, Patrick Soon-Shiong, the wealthy owner of the Los Angeles Times - the largest newspaper in Kamala Harris' home state - refused to allow the editorial board publish an endorsement of Harris, causing Los Angeles Times editor Mariel Garza to resign.)  And not only have many of the Washington Post's customers - 200,000, at last count - cancelled their subscriptions, many people have cancelled their Amazon Prime memberships and stopped buying products from Amazon and are asking others to do the same.  

Sorry, that's a non-starter for me.  

I have had to buy most of the products I've bought in the past several months from Amazon.  Among them are a mantel clock, a saucepan, a few car-care products, and the very laptop I wrote this blog post on.  I have found that, in many cases, finding the exact item I want in the stores is next to impossible.  Oh, I might find the right car polish or tire dressing I want in the local auto-parts store, but more often than not, I have to go to Amazon for what I want or need.  

And then there are books and records.   I bought a book about the history of the Volkswagen Golf through Amazon, a book published in Britain that cannot be found at the nearest Barnes & Noble.  And records - specifically, compact discs?  Sure I'd be happy to by my CDs at a record store - if I can find one.  You almost have to go to the ends of the earth to find a record store these days . . . Amazon has made them a little hard to find! 

Jeff Bezos is a genius - an almost evil genius.  He created a shopping system in which you're more likely to find the product you want or need through his company than in a mom-and-pop store, a big-box store like Wal-Mart or Target, or even a chain store at the mall.  And by the way, next time you go to your local mall, you may notice that that record store you used to browse in back in the 1980s is gone.  You might be able to find the album you're looking for at a locally owned record store - one of the benefits of Amazon monopolizing CD sales is that such record stores that survived Sam Goody and Record World are able to stay in business - but the the time and money you spend just to get there might not be worth it.

When you dominate the consumer-retail business so thoroughly that your business is always someone's best bet to get the product they want or need, you're more than powerful.  You're omnipotent.  So it's ironic that Jeff Bezos can't stand up to Trump.