Boycotts for Thee, Netflix for Me

When Donald Trump reintroduces tariffs against countries that had assumed themselves to be allies, or when he speaks in a language that suggests friendship is merely a temporary convenience, the immediate response is seldom strategic analysis, but moral irritation, often expressed through a renewed enthusiasm for 'the boycott', that modern political instrument, where personal inconvenience is likely to be minimal.

A boycott now tends to begin where sacrifice remains theoretical. Few start with mobile phones, payment systems, broadband, or streaming services, let alone anything else that maybe required before lunchtime. The first observable casualties are usually symbolic: Coca-Cola politely declined, KFC mentioned darkly, a Netflix subscription briefly reconsidered before someone remembers that their grandchildren are arriving on Saturday!

Sarah Paine, the American strategist whose insights on imperial overreach now echo far beyond academia, notes that alliances hinge on shared threats, not values, and great powers court overextension by neglecting allies' long-term interests amid mounting irritations. Allies, after all, possess memories as well as markets; irritation spreads faster than policy, yet, it appears, rarely enough to halt ordinary dependence.

This is not always hypocrisy, which on the Range, is often alleged too quickly and usually with more confidence than accuracy, it is more often the awkward fact that modern disapproval must pass through systems built elsewhere. One may object quite sincerely to Washington before breakfast but still spend the morning moving between Apple Inc., Meta Platforms, and Amazon, pausing only to check whether ones new inverter battery has reached Brisbane.

Around the hinterland, the same arrangement presents itself so regularly that it scarcely attracts notice. A conversation about buying local proceeds alongside imported chargers, batteries and screens, while someone else confirms that their replacement part is due Thursday, if Amazon's courier behaves itself.

The boycott survives, though mostly as a form of emotional tidiness, as a wish to register our displeasure while leaving everything intact.

Even Sydney contributed a small illustration: an anti-immigration march that dissolved, with little apparent discomfort, into the kebab queue. No one seemed especially troubled by the sequence. Slogans occupied one part of the afternoon, lunch another. Modern conviction, like most other things, appears capable of changing registers very quickly.

That may be why contemporary boycotts rarely resemble the older idea of sacrifice. They function more often as declarations of moral preference, lightly held and carefully fitted around practical necessity. A bottle may be avoided or a purchase postponed, but very little remains actually unplugged. By the following day, the battery is installed, the charger plugged in, and American power seemlessly resumes.

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The views expressed are those of the correspondent. Factual claims draw on publicly available sources.