Can I kick it?...

Fancy joining the growing movement to boycott American goods? Jeremy Ettinghausen finds it's much harder than you think as he sets out to banish the US from his life Portraits

- Pål Hansen

I really wish I had a Tesla. Ideally it would be a Cybertruck but any Tesla would do. Then I could plaster it with those "I bought this before Elon went mad" stickers, shamefacedly sell it at a loss and write a performative social media post about no longer being able to stomach the guilt of driving it around town. But as I don't actually own a car, let alone a Tesla, I've felt unable to add my voice to the anti-Musk and anti-Trump protests gaining momentum around the world. Until now.

Of course, I will not be travelling to the US any time soon.

As the former US secretary of labour, Robert Reich, writes, why reward Donald Trump's America with my tourist dollars? But as I wasn't planning to visit America, this doesn't feel like a sacrifice, let alone a meaningful one. So the appearance of the #BoycottUSA movement has arrived at just the right time.

Here is a campaign I can sign up to wholeheartedly. But I plan to go further than the one in three French people who are merely "avoiding" American products. Instead, I am proposing a total purge, ridding my house and my life of any taint of Americana. Not a Marlboro will be smoked, no Manhattan drunk, no foot stomped to the exuberant refrain of Cotton Eye Joe.

These are, of course, mere gestures. Eschewing Marlboros and line-dancing is no sacrifice at all, though turning down a perfect Manhattan will be tough. I know that if I am going to be serious about de-Americanising everything, I have to get systematic about it. There will need to be research and auditing, rules and considerations and caveats and, above all, self-control, commitment and discipline.

So, to keep myself on this righteous path and to help others similarly appalled by America's descent into authoritarian plutocracy cleanse their lives of Yankee fare, I offer the rules of the game and an incomplete review of everything that I will be replacing with unAmerican alternatives.

The rules