Coign: A credit card for conservatives who want to be heard

OPINION:

The uproar among Disney’s customers over its recent opposition to Florida’s new “Parental Rights in Education” law was swift and loud.  A recent Golden/TIPP poll found 57% of Americans “agree strongly” or “agree somewhat” with the bill, yet Disney bowed to a minority of activists to oppose the legislation. Lost in the recent discourse is that Disney’s corporate decision to cave to the left is not episodic, it’s a decade-long corporate trend.

For years we have seen corporations abandon their responsibilities and their customers in favor of their own economic, political, and social agendas. Woke corporations and their executives have taken the easy route of siding with fringe liberal causes to try and force a socialist reengineering of America. Football, baseball, big tech, Hollywood, and corporate America have teamed up to force-feed to the American people a nonsense agenda that is fundamentally un-American.

For conservatives, this leftward shift in our corporate leadership is not only troubling but at times constrictive. Nearly 60% of conservatives said they have recently purchased from a company that holds a political or social position contradicting their own values.

Convenience, lifestyle, and habits have trumped demanding companies share conservative views. The lack of a conservative choice when you look good in Levi’s, or the children are begging for Ben and Jerry’s means you buy what you need even though you are funding companies that have made it clear they don’t like you or your views.

This lack of conservative options is why we are launching Coign. Coign is a credit card for conservatives who want to be heard. Coign offers all the same cashback, customer service and perks people expect from their credit card, but every time cardholders swipe their card, a portion of the merchant fee is donated to conservative charities that customers get to vote for.

With Coign we aren’t trying to displace a product or a company, we are trying to rewire American commerce to reflect the views and values of Americans who have been forced into the shadows of the public square.

Coign will address two massive problems facing American conservatives. First, the Coign card will band together conservatives to regain market power and project their voices in corporate board rooms. Second, by dedicating a portion of the transaction to fund conservative charities, Coign customers will decrease the massive corporate-fueled investment gap between activist liberal charities and conservative charities.

For years corporate America has been ignoring conservatives because as consumers we are disorganized. Our voices are a higgledy-piggledy murmur that is never loud enough to make it to the board rooms of America’s corporations. Imagine the impact we can have if we organize a megaphone that channels our beliefs through our commerce.  

Empowering conservative voices can only be accomplished by us coming together to demand changes. To do that we have to join forces and demand accountability from the corporations that we use.  

A second tool offered by Coign is the power to end the massive funding gap in charitable giving. The top ten credit card companies in America have given over $2 billion dollars to liberal activist charities. Charities like ACORN, Tides Center, CodePink and the Clinton Foundation have been funded by conservatives’ commerce.

Ten times a week conservatives swipe their card to help liberals. Conservative credit card users are funding causes that we believe undermine the American dream because before now we’ve had no other choice. Coign offers a new choice for conservatives to positively impact our nation by harnessing our commerce.

With Coign we hope we can rebalance the conversations, decisions, and outcomes that have been so out of whack recently in corporate America.  Maybe now we can force corporations to see conservative customers as deserving of their respect for our values and beliefs, rather than just reliable and ignorable cash cows.

• Rob Collins is the founder of Coign, a credit card for conservatives. He founded the American Action Network and ran the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2014. He was also President Trump’s ‘confirmation Sherpa’ for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.