Very recently, I wrote that "Outside of the voting booth, economic boycotts are one of the few but effective means we as citizens and consumers possess to register dissent," encouraging readers to cancel their subscriptions to Disney, which on September 17 pulled Jimmy Kimmel's late night comedy show off its ABC stations under pressure from Trump's FCC.

Now, within a week, Disney has reversed its decision to bow to government censorship, restoring Kimmel to the airwaves, thanks to untold numbers who voted with their pocketbooks.

Even right-wing figures like Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson found FCC Chair Brendan Carr's threat to suspend the broadcast licenses of stations critical of the President too much to stomach. Senator Cruz called the assault on our First Amendment "dangerous as hell."

But it wasn't registered Republicans who brought Disney to its senses. Within a day of Disney CEO Bob Iger's call to pull the plug on Kimmel, the company's stock nosedived, erasing billions of dollars from Disney's value. Google searches for "cancel Disney+" skyrocketed. Hundreds of Hollywood stars including comics, writers, actors and directors signed an open letter crafted by the ACLU calling it a "dark moment for free speech" in Amerca. And so many angry consumers went online to suspend their subscriptions to Disney, Hulu and ESPN that the website kept crashing.

Disney's Outlook Is Depressed

Of course Disney execs said it was all a misunderstanding, that Jimmy's "timing" made his remarks seem "insensitive," and that a cordial conversation resolved everything. FCC hit man Carr said he never threatened anybody. "Move along now, nothing to see here, folks." Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

But the truth is that the America people and the Almighty Dollar had the final say. Disney miscalculated its bottom line, believing that bowing to Trump meant business as usual. Instead, their brand was tarnished, their subscriber base decimated, their revenues headed down the tubes. It turned out that people cared more than Bob Iger suspected about the U.S. Constitution.

Economic boycotts have a long history of bringing results, from the time of the American Revolution (remember the boycott on English tea?) to the boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, that launched the twentieth century's civil rights movement. Billionaires may own the corporations. But with our everyday decisions about where to shop and how to spend our money, We the People have far more political clout that we know.

The battle isn't over. A few ABC stations that are affiliated with Nextstar and Sinclair Broadcasting are still digging in their heels to keep Kimmel off the air.

Still, lovers of liberty should celebrate and let it be a lesson. Boycotts are a powerful and peaceful weapon in the arsenal of democracy. Not every win will come so quickly. The fight against autocracy promises to be a long struggle. The Montgomery boycott required nine months. The consumer boycott of South Africa needed thirty years to bring apartheid to an end. But when enough people cast a ballot with their dollars, we eventually win.

We are the super heroes we've been waiting for.