The Tesla Tea Party — *A future image of the Tesla Tea Party.*

As I try to establish my presence as both a science fiction writer and artist, it was my original intent to keep my blog and messaging apolitical. As a concerned citizen living in the USA, I cannot in good conscience, continue this practice nor was it ever truly possible. The current regime, which I did not vote for, is ripping the American government to shreds from the inside-out. The damage and fallout from these acts will take a generation to repair. The repercussions are global. Our famed system of checks and balances is failing. The Legislative Branch has been steamrolled and the Judicial Branch is in a showdown with an Executive hell-bent on ignoring the rule of law and the Constitution.

The nagging question is, “what can we do about it?” A darker question looms, “where do we flee?” As true patriots of the American democratic experience, our best response at this given moment is to #resist. We need to make our voices heard. Engage in small acts of “good trouble” as the late great John Lewis called it.

Are there legitimate alternatives to the mega-corporations that have composed this oligarchy? Can the average citizen make an impact? What follows is a compilation of my observations thus far.

General advice:

Do not obey in advance. This is how the populace freely cedes power to tyrants. It’s easy to offer up excuses like trying to remain neutral or following business interests so as not to ruffle any feathers. The more the actions of this administration are normalized or compartmentalized the more power they gain. Acknowledge that this isn’t normal and remind your neighbors that this isn’t normal, because it isn’t.
Call to action: walk around muttering “what the fuck?”
Do not dream up nightmares. Take on reality as it comes and meet the present moment. Is this Germany circa 1933? Russia 1999? No. It’s America 2025 and the context is completely different. There are plenty of eerie similarities to the rise of notorious regimes, so stay vigilant, but don’t live in constant fear and panic. Fear and panic are tools used for exploitation. Stand tough, stand tall, and stand up but never cower.
Call to action: think about which issues matter most to you, where the line in the sand is, and what fighting for those things would look like. Do that.
Take your attention back. Stop scrolling. Turn off the TV. Go outside. Try meditation. Try yoga. Practice self-care. Protect your peace. If a service is free, you are the product. Don’t be a product. Don’t hustle. Just be. Be a human not a commodity. Delete platforms that disregard your humanity. Be ungovernable, by which I mean, don’t be a target for manipulation and don’t be afraid to be a stick in the mud. The act of resisting presumes a certain level of discomfort. Embrace it. Living in comfort is often incompatible with fighting for your values, morals, and rights.
Call to action: whittle down the platforms you use, turn off most or all notifications, and put your overall media consumption on a diet. Which outlets seem to be telling the whole truth? Stick with those.
Check in with your family, friends, and neighbors. We can’t allow ourselves to get isolated from each other. The consolidation of power happening now is among the richest of the rich. This isn’t a fight between left or right, it’s between the top and bottom socioeconomically. The people, in numbers if in nothing else, hold the power. Those at the top seem to need a reminder. Standing up for what is right and just, however small your actions, will help others to feel supported and encouraged to stand up as well. If we all feel isolated, alone, and apathetic they will continue to roll right over us. There is safety in numbers. Courage is contagious.
Call to action: find a local protest, perhaps at a Tesla showroom, and convince someone to come with you. Go to another one and convince someone else to go. Fresh faces will be important to prevent stagnation.
The advice we hear most often is to contact your local representatives. This one tends to feel like pissing into the wind, but there are signs that it’s having a real impact. The phone lines for our representatives are swamped and can’t keep up. “A system that usually handles a few dozen calls per minute is straining to keep up with more than 1,500.” Town hall meetings have been hit so hard that the GOP is running away with their tails between their legs.
Call to action: keep calling the phone lines, filling the inboxes, and showing up to town hall meetings. It works.
Advocate within your local community. Even hyper-local to within your own neighborhood. Organize with others under the banner of '“what can we do, here and now, to make ourselves more resilient?” “What can we do in our town to protect those now under attack?”
Call to action: display something to signal your allegiance such as a Ukrainian and/or pride flag and talk with others who do the same. Sign up to be a volunteer clinic escort for Planned Parenthood (this applies more to red states).
Donate your time or money to organizations that can fight and organize on your behalf. Remember, power in numbers. The right organizations can take collective actions. The more help they receive the more good they can potentially do.
Call to action: some great places to start are local food banks and shelters. From there try the ACLU (Constitutional rights), The Satanic Temple (religious freedom), Elevated Access (abortion and gender care), Planned Parenthood (women’s health), NAACP (civil rights), NRDC (climate defense), The Trevor Project (LGBTQ+)
Don’t be silent. Wear pins/shirts/swag with messages of support for marginalized communities or sentiments of resistence. Leave notes in public places with dry erase markers or stickers. Attend local protests when they arise. Make art. “Flood the zone” right back at them by flagging corrections on google maps for the Gulf of Mexico and Mt. Denali. Get creative!
Vote with your wallet…

What Companies Deserve A Boycott?

The worst offenders are those who both donated to Donald Trump and have scaled back or totally scrapped DEI policies. Bonus points to any companies that are also anti-union, anti-LGBTQ+ inclusion, and not ecofriendly. Some companies, which I will break down into more detail, will be harder to boycott than others. The list that follows is not comprehensive, rather these are the big players in alphabetical order. Elon Musk (Tesla, X/Twitter, SpaceX) with his rogue DOGE entity shredding the federal government is enemy number one. As always, please do your own research and pick your battles. It will be nearly impossible for any one person to boycott them all for many different reasons such as: sunk cost in a product you cant afford to replace yet. Try to reduce your transactions with these companies one by one. Also, if you’ve got any of these stocks, sell.

The Big Bad Wolves

Companies that have donated to Trump and rolled back DEI initiatives. Ditch them completely if at all possible.

Amazon, AT&T, Bank of America, Boeing, Coinbase, Crypto.com, ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, Google, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp), OpenAI, PayPal, Tesla, Uber

The Usual Suspects

Companies that have either kissed the ring or rolled back DEI initiatives but maybe not both. Consider spending less on these brands and be weary of them going forward.

Airbnb, Apple, Ashley Furniture, Bayer, Carrier, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, Coca-Cola, Disney, Ford, GE, GM, Hanes, Harley-Davidson, Hobby Lobby, Home Depot, Instacart, Intel, Intuit, Jack Daniel's, Jimmy John's, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, John Deere, Kroger, Lowes, McDonald's, Microsoft, MolsonCoors, Morgan Stanley, MyPillow, Nestle, The New York Jets, Papa John's, PepsiCo, Paramount, Publix, Public Storage Self Storage, Qualcomm, REI, Robinhood, Smuckers, Soma Intimates, Starbucks, Target, TD Ameritrade, Tractor Supply Company, Tyson Foods, Verizon, Victoria's Secret, Walmart, Warner Bros. Discovery, Wendy’s, Whole Foods

The Heroes

Good places to redirect your dollars. Please send more suggestions for this depressingly short list.

Ben & Jerry’s, Costco, Grove Collaborative, Logitech, Patagonia, Penzeys Spices, Wegmans

The Worst of the Worst

Fossil fuels, insurance, big banks, and private prisons. You can write to your representatives about these industries, but other than switching from big banks to credit unions or buying EVs (that aren’t Tesla), there’s not all that much we can do without collective action en masse. These are long-term targets, the final bosses, that we’ll eventually have to deal with.

Google & Apple

Our phones are the source of most Big Brother-esque oligarchy tech. A wire tap and tracking device all-in-one that we almost never part with. A digital age trade-off of privacy for convenience and connection. Can you thrive without one? Unlikely.

The most recent statics of global market share for mobile OS platforms is 72% Android, 27.5% iOS, and less than 1% each for all others. Not listed is HarmonyOS which is utilized by Huawei phones from China which are banned in the US. That leaves us all with only two real options. Google (Alphabet) or Apple. Both of which donated $1 million to Trump’s Inauguration Fund and had their CEOs attend the inauguration itself. In addition, both Google Maps and Apple Maps capitulated to the new administration and have dubiously changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

At present, I do not know of any solution, workaround, or competitor that has any chance of unseating Google or Apple. My only advice would be to use a VPN and be careful with that which you share. The same goes for your personal computer, as the sole option after Apple is Microsoft (which also donated $1 million to the Inauguration Fund) or further obscurities like Linux which is generally for power users only. This is maybe the number one horcrux in the Big Brother pantheon of tools for oppression. Someone should do something about it.

Amazon

Jeff Bezos and Amazon have their hands in so many cookie jars. The behemoth must be separated into it’s component parts and fought one at a time. Prior to the second Trump regime, Bezos and Amazon were already under fire for anti-union activity and worker abuse. I have a Prime membership, you have a Prime membership, and the blue trucks circle every neighborhood like FBI surveillance vans. Prime feels like an obvious thing to cut, less dollars to Bezos and more dollars in our pockets, but breaking up is hard to do. Some items are impossible to find without the Amazon catalogue as they have so thoroughly decimated small business everywhere. Even items I’ve found straight from the source end up using Amazon Fulfillment for shipping anyway. The goal here is to pull back spending from Amazon, though total replacement for everything they offer may not be realistic at this juncture. Let’s take a closer look.

Prime

What would we lose by cutting our Amazon Prime memberships?

Fast and free shipping. Without Prime you can still get free shipping for orders over $25 and do you really need stuff ASAP or can it wait a few days?

Exclusive lightning or Prime Day deals. Who cares? Most other retailers will price match or have competitive sales at the same time. Though the most logical alternatives, Target and Walmart, are also on the naughty list.

Prime Video. Oh, you mean the service that spent $40 million to acquire the rights to a Melania Trump docu-series? The one with a director accused of sexual misconduct? It’s a discombobulated platform I haven’t streamed anything on since Mozart in the Jungle and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ended. PASS!

Amazon Music? Never touched it.

Prime Gaming? Never heard of it.

Amazon Prime Visa Card with 5% cash back on Amazon fulfilled products? Shit, I have one of these and it’s pretty awesome. Damn you, Bezos!

Whole Foods

Amazon owns it, don’t shop there. Easy one. Next…

The Washington Post

Before Bezos bought it, WaPo was a bastion of democratic journalism. Before Trump: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” After Trump: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.” Gross. There’s been a mass exodus of both subscribers and contributors since Bezos has dug his claws into the inner workings of the once-great newspaper. Unsubscribe, don’t give them clicks, block them from online news aggregators. If democracy can die in the dark, The Washington Post can die in Bezos’ dark money portfolio. My sincerest apologies to the journalists who have become cannon fodder.

Ring, Twitch, & One Medical

My house is full of Ring products. It’s not a small ask to replace the whole system, in regards to time and money. For me personally, this will have to wait until I move. If you don’t have Ring and want similar products you should seek alternatives, there are many.

Twitch is a source of income for many online gamers and a variety of streamers. There must be other services, right? Amazon operates Twitch as a subsidiary so this one might be okay to continue using with caution if no viable alternatives exist. Though how long will it be before Bezos and his band of oligarch-bros hear about someone streaming something they disagree with? Are shadow bans on the menu? Probably.

As for One Medical, do you want Amazon to be in charge of your heathcare anymore than you’d trust the other entities currently facilitating the American healthcare debacle? No. I think not.

Alexa

We’ve got Alexa all over the house. She plays nice with our Ecobee smart thermostats, Philips Hue lights, and so on. She’s also collecting our data and sending it up into the Amazon cloud and her privacy setting are getting a roll back. Again, I made an investment into a smart home system that keeps nudging us toward 1984 and I don’t appreciate it. I’m starting to wonder if she’s more useful to Amazon as a data gathering tool rather than as an assistant to me and my family. This is another situation I’ll have to reevaluate when I move (in this economy?) due to sunk costs and replacement options. My advice would be to avoid smart home speakers/assistants going forward until the technology is more useful anyway. Definitely do not pay for the new Alexa+ AI service.

AWS

AWS is the sneakiest source of Amazon’s power. Up to 40% of the internet via the cloud is run through Amazon Web Services. Best of luck to anyone attempting to distance themselves from that. It’s basically the infrastructure that powers most of what we interact with online. To boycott AWS in opposition of Amazon is to not drive on federal roads to boycott the government. Not practical in any sense. AWS makes up 67% of Amazon’s total profit. Which means, sadly, that boycotting their online shopping and other divisions may only amount to a mere drop in the ocean. I’m not saying to give up entirely on this endeavor, though the climb is steep.

Kindle, Audible, & Goodreads

Unlike your phone, if you enjoy ebooks as I do, there is an alternative. Amazon is now engaging in anti-competitive behavior and stoking fears such as: do I really own the ebooks I’ve purchased on Amazon or are they more like rentals? Will this give Amazon the ability to censor or alter text in banned or challenged books?

Talk about 1984! It’s feeling downright dystopian around here.

I’m not going to claim that alternatives have no downsides. Anyone taking on a mega-corporation with monopolistic reach will stumble out of the gate. It’s hard to scale up. Which is why we need to nurture them with our dollars and suck it up for the cause. In the past, Kindle’s biggest rival, the Nook from Barnes and Noble, never stood a chance and it failed. Let us hope that where one has failed, others may succeed.

I present to you: Boox. I know, I know, it’s android based so technically we’re just switching from Amazon to Google in this case but as previously mentioned, there’s no avoiding Google or Apple right now, and this is not a Google-branded device. However, it’s because of the Android OS that this is a good alternative. This will allow for an easier transition as you can still read your current library of Kindle ebooks on a Boox device. Thankfully, there’s no walled garden here and you can read from other apps as well, which brings me to my next introduction…

Meet Bookshop! An online book store that you can use to support local book shops. Earlier this year they launched a mobile app for ebooks. So, not only can we now avoid Amazon for ebooks, but we can support local stores with our digital downloads at the same time. A rare win-win!

For a cost-free alternative try Libby to download ebooks from your local library. All you need is a library card. Speaking of which, a library card also grants you access to Kanopy which allows you to stream video content through your local library.

As for audio books, Chirp is the place to be. Tons of sales and deals without a subscription fee. I’m so tired of subscribing to every little thing. Chirp is everything I could hope for in a service.

Amazon-owned Goodreads can be replaced by the woman and minority owned Story Graphs. You can even download your Goodreads data and import it into Story Graphs. I find the interface to be a bit more clunky and I’m not sure how to find my friends, but the gain is probably worth the initial pain. Plus there isn’t an ongoing review bombing scandal at Story Graphs and you can give half star ratings!

Bonus: I recommend building up a physical home library of banned or challenged books.

Social Media

In the wake of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta killed its fact-checking program. He also donated to the inauguration fund and sat in the front row. Despite male dominance in the tech industry, Zuck also called for more masculine energy at his company while disparaging DEI efforts. Meta has also excluded LGBTQ+ from its Hateful Conduct policy. Delete Meta apps, full stop.

Also, if you haven’t already deleted Twitter/X for the same reasons via Elon Musk, what are you waiting for?

Join the fediverse! A decentralized internet where “the places where you connect with your friends, or make a living as a creator, couldn’t be irrevocably destroyed by a billionaire.”

BlueSky is the new Twitter/X/Threads

Flashes is the new Instagram (not yet available for Android)

Signal is the new Facebook Messenger/WhatsApp

While not part of the fediverse, Substack is great for paid newsletters by independent journalists. I recommend following Heather Cox Richardson, Amy Siskind, and Erin Reed for starters.

Legacy Media: TLDR

Originally, before this post got super long, I was also going to use this space to go into detail about legacy media. Long story short, just about all broadcast news has been captured by billionaires (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, etc.). PBS and NPR, currently under attack by the Trump Administration, may be the last bastion of “unbiased” legacy news coverage. Also, if your local stations are owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, you’re burnt there too. We should cast a wide net and take our information gathering with a grain of salt. I recommend Ground News which is a platform designed to hoover up the news like Kirby and show you where the bias is coming from. It’s designed to burst your echo chamber and it’s fantastic for re-balancing your media diet.

Conclusion

Disengaging from the oligarchy machine is a noble and necessary but difficult course of action. I refuse to be a mindless consumer any longer. I’m not data. I’m not a pawn of Musk, Bezos, or Zuckerberg. I’m a human being who deserves common decency and respect, and you are too.

I fall into the group that has been called the “woke radical left.” I want clean air and clean water. I want national parks and their animal inhabitants taken care of. I want education to be a priority. I want universal healthcare. I want the homeless to be homed and fed. I want public spaces free from the terror of mass shootings. I want people to be able to marry whoever they want. I want everyone to have full bodily autonomy, chiefly women and transgender people. I want the wealthy to pay their fair share. I want veterans and the elderly to have proper care and safety nets. I want private money out of politics.

It doesn’t seem radical to me.