The Anti-MAGA Boycott of American Goods and Services
It seems absurd to be an American writing advocating for a boycott of my own country, but we live in absurd times and the Canadians are right. We have spent too long and too much money buying American, investing in America, to then be not only abandoned by America, but for it to become our advisory and an enemy to global democracy.
Every day we wait we allow millions to flow into the United States to the very companies supporting Donald Trump and Global MAGA. Every hour we allow X and Elon Musk to operate in our countries we harm ourselves and enrich him, the man dismantling the American Republic hour by hour.
It is not just Musk though, dozens of major US companies have actively supported the rise of MAGA like Meta providing staff to Trump’s campaigns. To companies like Harley Davidson or John Deere obeying in advanced to resegregate their companies and discriminate against marginalised people that Donald Trump doesn’t like.
Every time you see a “DEI” measure or programme rolled back you need to understand this is resegregation, this is dismantling multiethnic and multiracial democracy in both the public sphere and in the private sphere.
We have seen book burnings, book bans, medical bans, word bans, and it isn’t stopping it is only accelerating. Yet still we continue to buy American, no more.
This will be hard, this will take time. Some goods and services have no replacement or nothing decent enough, especially in the digital services and entertainment sectors. But that just means we need to also pressure our political and economic leaders to invest in replacements for those services and rapidly.
We can take this as an opportunity to support our local and regional economies and the economies of other democratic countries under threat by MAGA and fascism. We can choose to invest our money in places and peoples who share our values and do not wish us harm.
To make this most effective it will require the work to target the specific places, people and companies who are key to Trump’s political support. This will take research, activists, time, money and effort, but it is all possible as shown in the BDS movement.
We must stand like the Canadians have, stand tall and with each other, against Donald Trump and MAGA. We must boycott American Goods and Services.
