In the past couple of years there have been accusations of banks closing accounts of people who’s politics the government doesn’t like. No explanation at all. A couple of targets have been anything conservative and connected with cryptocurrency. Former First Lady Melania Trump and her son Barron were refused bank accounts after January 6. The same thing happened with Dinesh D’Souza.
Banks need government
So it stands to reason if the politics of the day are against a particular person, negative action will be taken against them, regardless that it’s illegal to do that. Trump was furious.
“I was shocked and dismayed to learn that my long-time bank decided to terminate my account and deny my son the opportunity to open a new one.” Conservative author D’Souza was kicked out of Chase Bank.
Banks canceling accounts
D’Souza announced on X, “Walked in one day to discover they had closed my account. The local branch couldn’t understand it since I was a good and known customer. They said the order came from the top with no explanation given or even available!”
People can be blocked from other financial services such as credit cards or payroll. If enough banks refuse them, people can be forced to use things such as check cashing services which have much higher fees and interest.
That door can swing both ways
But debanking will hurt the institution’s reputation. It’s not unlike Big Tech’s censoring during the election. Marc Andreessen is the tech billionaire founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He spoke recently on Joe Rogan’s podcast about this targeting. This activity is called Operation Choke Point.
“We’ve had like 30 founders debanked in the last four years. It’s been a big recurring pattern. This is one of the reasons why we ended up supporting Trump. We just can’t live in this world. We can’t live in a world where somebody starts a company that’s a completely legal thing and then they literally get sanctioned and embargoed by the United States government.”
