Your Holiday Stop-Shopping Guide

Do you speak billionaire? Neither do I!

But I think I get the gist.*

This pre-holiday season, the loudest action we the wee people of the 99% might take to get some attention is go silent. Play dead. Don’t participate. Stop the grinding cogs of this inhumane system before they pulverize everything/everyone we hold dear (much like the broken three-story escalator I just heard about on an episode of I Survived that suddenly accelerated so fast the teeth of its churning steps effectively ate dozens of people).

As I peruse the endless gilded crevices of the online gift shops (there are multiple) of our QVC Presidency, I keep thinking of lines from Doctor Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham:

From the main Trump Store all I do not want for Christmas are:

• all the red hats you would expect including the “Four More Years” model, $55, but also everything you don’t need to stuff your stockings:
• Trump snow globe $80, a “Patriotic Trump nutcracker” $48, MAGA hat glass ornament $92

I would not, could not desire—even you if bedazzled—anything from the “golden age of America” section:

• Trump wrapping paper emblazoned with favorite colors gold and red, the all-powerful T name, and flags
• gold earbuds and gold sequin pouches, gold Mar-a-Lago ornaments, Gold Roast coffee, actual golden bars of course

The list of the not-want goes on and on. Categories of honey, pickleball sports, the Concho collection, a Save America coffee table book (a picture book of course, because who reads?) resplendent with a Trump bleeding ear cover, $110.

Back in the good ol’ campaign days (I mean, before America was “Great”) you could donate to his campaign “now with Crypto,” where there was a whole different Win Red shop with all the “gun owners for Trump,” “Believers for Trump,” “Black Americans for Trump,” “Catholics for Trump,” “Not Guilty” mug with a mugshot, you could never wish for.

Wait, this campaign shop is indeed still active and replete—as we hold back our collective gag reflex—with Trumps in Santa hats. To ensure the merch money keeps flowing toward that third term, there’s a 2026 calendar, Trump’s face on a tee with a “Daddy” title, even a “dancing Trump” black shirt (with these moves in four unenviable poses) since you know you don’t need to learn to dance like that.

Remember when candidates like Harris once had a handful of shirts and bumper stickers? Those sites are gone.

But there’s so much more not to covet that somehow endures, as listed in The Palm Beach Post:

• Sick of Ryan Reynolds’ Mint ads? Get Trump Mobile, offering, of course, a golden phone, the T1. Supposedly available for pre-order this past summer and slated to ship in October. But there’s been no comment since, nor any golden phones.
• If a Kardashian can sell tequila, how about Putin’s BFF doing vodka? Trump Vodka was once touted by his son as coming soon for pre-order at $47.45 (Trump’s favorite numbers), but there’s no listed timeline.
• During his campaign for a second term, Trump sold gold sneakers for $399. “Trump 2028” sneakers are currently available for purchase for $799. Trump is constitutionally limited to two terms, which is pointed out in a helpful disclaimer on the website.
• Also during his 2024 campaign, Trump was hawking $60 Bibles in partnership with musician Lee Greenwood (whom House Speaker Mike Johnson would prefer over Bad Bunny for the Super Bowl halftime show).

I mentioned more links you don’t need to click:

realtumpcoins.com

• From the Second Edition, “a defining new era,” the President Trump victory Gold Medallion (Certified), $5,500
• or new arrival: 5 oz. Silver Medallion for $895, a “Big beautiful silver coin,” says a five-star review.

gettrumpwatches.com

• features a banner ad for “President Trump’s Red Beauty,” fight fight fight, complete with that sharpie-sort of signature we know so well from the pubic area of girl’s outline he didn’t draw.
• The holiday bundle special pairs a red-faced watch (because it’s embarrassed) with a bottle of scent topped by a gold statuette of a skinny Trump’s likeness whether it’s perfume or cologne.
• $100,000 watch with gold and diamonds with other lesser special models of merch you don’t need to purchase down to $499

Rolling Stone goes vintage, reminding us what a long tchotchke-cluttered road it’s been since steaks and bottled water.

Wasn’t there something in the fine print somewhere about a President not profiting from his position? No matter! This ethics complaint about the 168 products still being sold during the “transition period” now seems quaint in comparison to the billions in Crypto deals happening under our snot-encrusted noses.

Could the red tide be shifting? Just a tad? Facebook served me up some post of a photo of a local store having a $.99 cent sale on the MAGA merch that looked untouched.

Singer Billie Eilish had a close-out sale, giving away a good portion of her (relatively minor) wealth to charity and calling out the billionaires (when Mark Zuckerberg was in the audience).

In her blunt speech at the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Innovator Awards, Eilish called out the wealthiest for hoarding as she announced her donation of $11.5 million from her tour to support food equity and climate justice causes.

Scratch the word billionaire and call it trillionaire (a word my spellcheck here doesn’t even recognize) as Elon Musk is slated to reach that impossible tier soon. Define rich. Is there ever a point where one might be rich enough? What exactly is the point of having more money than you could ever spend, more than all your innumerable children could ever spend in their lifetimes, and their children’s children, etc.

What does money equal? Power. Who’s in charge here? Didn’t someone once promise us democracy?

We have power in resisting this grift.

This season boycott the big-box. Shop local or not at all. From the “Mass Blackout” to “We Ain’t Buying It,” protests aim to target Trump and his billionaire-boys.

From Fast Company:

In our consumer-driven culture, when the cost of goods is soaring, one of the most radical things you can do is not to buy anything on Black Friday. That’s the message from “Mass Blackout,” a coalition of grassroots groups that are protesting the Trump administration’s policies and urging you not to participate in this year’s extended Black Friday sales.

The Black Out urges you to pull the plug on your commercial life for a full week surrounding Thanksgiving, from Tuesday Nov. 25, especially ignoring Black Friday, until the day after Cyber Monday, Tuesday Dec. 2. Not only that, but they recommend staying home from work if you are able. Not even streaming, no credit cards. Go dark. If ever there was a time for me to be in my treehouse, the time is now.

For the blackout,

• Stop online or in-store shopping (except for small businesses)
• Stop streaming, cancel subscriptions, and make no digital purchases
• Stop work (if you can)
• If you must spend: Support small, local businesses, and pay in cash

“No spending. No work. No surrender. The system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as designed—for the wealthy,” the movement’s website says. “We’re not targeting small businesses or communities—we’re targeting the corporate systems that profit from injustice, fuel authoritarianism, and crush worker power.”

The boycott also includes avoiding nonessential travel, restaurants, and normal consumer behavior; staying off ad-driven platforms unless organizing; halting spending; logging off entertainment platforms; and donating to Feeding America to support those refusing to work.

There’s some confusion these days about possible targets. How do we even separate ourselves from these systems that pervade everything we do, where to even begin. Target itself can be a target. One man online lists the top companies to avoid, some names that may surprise you who are channeling funding into the regime directly or indirectly: Target, Goya, Buffalo Wild Wings, Arby’s, Waze, WhatsApp, Whole Foods, Dasani, Minute Maid. But others quickly note in the comments: Waze is owned by Google. WhatsApp is Facebook. Whole Foods is Amazon. The beverages fall under the Coca-Cola umbrella. Do you see a pattern here?

The funnel is ever-funneling. Follow the money trail to always the same handful of about five dudes.

No one said it would be easy. But we have to try to stop handing them the keys to everything.

Along with this big beautiful boycott, there’s the second specific boycott underway targeting Amazon (“for allegedly funding the Trump administration to secure corporate tax cuts”), Target (“for its rollback on DEI”) and Home Depot (“for working with ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been arresting, detaining, and deporting immigrants). We Ain’t Buying It is happening for a shorter window around the same time (Nov. 27-Dec. 1.)

SAY! IN THE DARK?
HERE IN THE DARK!
I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT IN THE DARK.