The Resistance Is Open for Business
How Small Businesses Are Choosing Democracy Over Silence
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Every day, I watch regular people do more to defend democracy than institutions with billion-dollar budgets. The defenders are not the heroes you expect. They are the soap maker, the coffee roaster, the indie bookstore using their small squares of internet to say what most brands refuse to say out loud.
If you are waiting for a cavalry to ride in and save us from this authoritarian slide, I have news. The cavalry already arrived. They are packing orders, printing labels, and posting TikToks between customer emails.
My Cluck Hut: Welcome to the Revolution
Start in Nashville with My Cluck Hut, a soap company that looks like glitter and chaos on the outside and channels real money to justice-focused nonprofits.
They make eco-friendly soaps, shampoos, and mosquito-repellent bars. Their real product is conviction. Their mission centers community, planet, and people first. A portion of proceeds from their GIVE A CLUCK page goes directly to local and national nonprofits. They say it plainly. They are not here only to protect your skin. They are here to protect your community.
On social, they refuse neutrality. Their Instagram and TikTok mix chaotic humor, mental health honesty, and unapologetic civic courage. They back rallies. They amplify justice work. They take a clear pro-human, anti-authoritarian stance because neutrality fuels authoritarianism.
Find them at mycluckhut.com.
Three Keys Coffee: Caffeine and Liberation
In Houston, Three Keys Coffee treats every bag of beans like a love letter to Black culture and a direct challenge to sanitized, apolitical coffee branding.
Three Keys is a Black-owned specialty coffee roastery rooted in jazz, Black history, and community. Culture is not a side project. It is the foundation. They use their platform to highlight racial justice causes, uplift other Black creators, and support community organizations through partnerships and donation campaigns tied to product releases and events.
When you buy from them, you do more than upgrade your morning routine. You invest in a cultural and civic ecosystem built on dignity instead of dominance.
Find them at threekeyscoffee.com and on Instagram at @threekeyscoffee.
Red Emma’s: Radical Books, Real Democracy
Then there is Red Emma’s, a worker-owned bookstore and cooperative in Baltimore that operates at the intersection of reading and resistance.
Red Emma’s describes itself as a worker cooperative bookstore, coffee shop, and community events space rooted in anti-authoritarian, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist politics. They host teach-ins on fascism, labor organizing, surveillance, and mutual aid. They stock books authoritarian movements try to ban. They use profits to keep their doors open for grassroots groups who need space to gather, learn, and organize.
This is what democratic infrastructure looks like when large institutions retreat. Worn chairs. Radical books. People who refuse silence.
Find them at redemmas.org and on Instagram at @redemmas.
Your Digital Drumbeat: What To Do Next
If you are reading this and thinking, “I am just one person,” remember that so are they.
Here is how you turn awareness into action:
• Buy from them. Replace one Amazon purchase this week with an order from My Cluck Hut, Three Keys Coffee, or Red Emma’s. Your money either feeds corporations that accommodate authoritarianism or fuels resistance. Choose deliberately.
• Boost their signal. Follow them. Share a post. Stitch a TikTok. Algorithms suppress anything that challenges power. Your engagement keeps these businesses visible.
• Find your local fighters. Look for the bar, bookstore, salon, or food truck near you speaking up for democracy, LGBTQ+ rights, racial justice, or voting access. Ask how they show up. Support them publicly.
• Become the next node. You do not need a storefront to matter. You have a feed, a voice, a group chat, a neighborhood. Use them. Make your corner of the internet and your corner of town hostile terrain for authoritarianism.
Democracy does not live only in courtrooms and capitols. It lives in soap shops, roasteries, and co-ops that refuse silence. If we want a future where our children do not ask why we stayed quiet, the answer starts here. Receipts. Reposts. Relentless support for the small businesses fighting to keep us free.
Let’s Cluckin’ GOOO!! It’s a small biz revolution! The more that join the more powerful we become. THIS is how we change the face of how biz is done in this unfettered capitalist hellscape. We vote with our dollar and put people and the planet FIRST. Appreciate the love, fam! ✊✊🫵🫶
Makwa Coffee, Roseville, Minnesota. Indigenous owner is former state legislator. Supporting local businesses.