Previously, I suggested that US residents and citizens, including non-voters and people residing outside the US write to their representative and senators. For those who, like me, do not live in the US, you have an additional government you can write to.
This is what I have asked for, some of which is specific to the UK:
- expressions of solidarity with anti ICE protestors
- an end to the special relationship
- joining European partners in developing alternatives to US tech platforms
- the introduction of tariffs
- sanctions against Trump administration officials implicated in harming migrants
Anyone in any country can write asking for these or similar. If you have a connection to the US, such as citizenship, you may want to mention that, but it’s not necessary. Maybe you’re just horrified. Maybe you just don’t want to do military service in Greenland. Frankly, there are a lot of reasons the US is a dangerous ally to have.
Asking for sanctions against my own country is a big bright line, but so is murdering people in broad daylight. So is detaining hundreds of five year old refugees. It’s good that one kid got released, but that prison is full of traumatised children, being fed spoiled food and not allowed to study.
(Also, I see you Europeans getting smug, but Calais is also full of children held in cages without access to schooling, so fuck off and protest that too, eh.)
I wrote to my own MP and a cross-party Lord. You to can write to a lord. Starting an email with Dear Lord feels grimly apt to this moment. But which lord? I picked one with experience living in the US, but you can also pick them via policy area or even based on their birthday. Britain is nothing if not arbitrary.
In the last post, I also suggested you dump Microsoft. Take the money (and time, tbh) you save and consider donating that to a US NGO like HIAS which offers legal and practical support for migrants. Or donate to support migrants where you live. For example, Rainbow Migration or Care for Calais.
BDS USA
Even if our countries think it’s too risky to piss off the tech platform monopoly, we can do a consumer boycott and try to move our workplaces.
The major Trumpy tech platforms are Google, Amazon, Facebook (Meta), Apple and Microsoft (aka GAFAM). It took years for these to creep into our lives and getting away from them won’t happen in an instant. You shouldn’t bin your working laptop or phone, but you probably want to make some changes to the software.
Last time, at the bottom of the post, I mentioned some email providers who are not the above and mentioned that I didn’t delete my gmail account, I just set up a redirect and just started using my new email address for most communication. It’s a slow process, but it works.
Here is a guide to avoiding Amazon for shopping.
Obviously, these Trumpy companies do have overwhelming market share, so my suggestion is just to try something else first. The only ways I could find to get refillable whiteboard markers was to order them off Amazon or travel to Germany, so I ordered from Amazon. But when I wanted a power bank, I found one on Argos.
Alas, we live in capitalism. Argos isn’t perfect, but they’re not GAFAM.
Register to vote
If you’re a US citizen, please do register. Are you a dual national? Register in both places, if it’s allowed.
