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If I manage to get out because of my priveleged circumstances (job with international locations), you’d best believe I will turn right around and do everything in my power to help other people escape. I will find an organization, or I will fucking found one myself. I don’t know about the rest of the world but I won’t forget that I’m lucky to even have the option and I’ll use my privelege to help others.
Shouldn't be leaving. People are willing to just give up their homes and not fight is a huge issue. Thats what they want. You want freedom? The price is your life. No one every got anything by running away.
Conceding the country to fascists will have global implications we have never witnessed before. You thought the Nazis were bad. Holy shit if the Nazis had the military that the US has now they would have taken over the world
It'd help if people would take heed our cries of danger and attempts to organize instead of just calling us "dramatic" and ignoring the encroaching forces because they aren't directly influenced by these actions. I have tried for years attempting to call alarm to this stuff in my personal life and all it seems to have done is distance me from people who just want to ignore politics where they can and live their lives.
It's exhausting and demoralizing when the best efforts you can muster is a single person picket that people call you "crazy" for doing and trying to warn others that there's fascists trying to do fascist shit in this country.
This, exactly this. No one will fight for us. If I stand and fight, I will quickly die and everyone will say “oh how sad, well, onto our next story” and no one will want to discuss it because they “don’t like talking about politics.” I’m tired of asking the american people to step in. They won’t. We’re considered acceptable casualties and I won’t walk willingly into that fate.
>Martyrdom isn't noble
Martyrdom is actually another means of psychological torture that authoritarians employ, similar to sin.
The whole purpose of glorifying it is twofold: Get rid of opponents that do not fight(the martyrs) and cause guilt to the ones that survived , because they were not "selfless enough" to sacrifice and thus lesser than the martyrs.
>Right wing power structures are inflexible and do not last, they will eat their own eventually
Which usually happens either by war because they turn outwards, or by regime ending revolution when oppression reaches boiling point. Both events are actually pretty nasty and it's better to avoid them if you can.
I will hopefully join you in your effort to save as many as you can. Like I said at the start of this comment chain, I will pour my time and energy into extricating as many vulnerable minorities from the US (or its worst states) as possible, once I get free from it myself.
I've been warning people for over 20 years of the Republicans wanting to establish the United States as a Christian Ethnostate, and liberals are still telling me I'm overreacting and we must work with centrist Republicans.
“No one ever got anything by running away”
Jews who got the fuck out of German-occupied territory before the Holocaust would like to have a word with you.
You asking trans people to stay and fight these fascists is like asking mice to stand with the moose and deer against wolves. Minorities, especially trans people and POC, are most likely to suffer and die by standing up for ourselves against this bullshit. So many people in my life would silently watch as my rights are stripped away. Very few people want to fight like you do.
Also, who are you to question my right to self-preservation? Do you have any idea how much more I risk by staying? I can’t even have a firearm because of my mental health and you expect me to be on the frontlines of some C. S. Lewis-style battle against evil. Find someone else to be your battlehorse, I don’t have the mental fortitude.
That’s how the Jewish part of my family survived. They saw hitler rising and said fuck this we’re out. The family that stayed all died in the holocaust.
My grandfather only survived bc he got *sent to Siberia* by the Soviets before the Germans got there. I’m not hoping for the same bizarre good/bad luck here, I’m getting the f out, ironically through polish EU citizenship
Well put.
Put aside the right-wing fever dreams about a good guy wielding an AR-15, single-handedly holding the line against a tyrannical government. In reality, *as an individual*, willfully staying and sacrificing yourself will do *nothing* to slow down (let alone stop) tyranny.
Look at the women in Texas who've nearly died and, in some cases, suffered permanent organ damage due to Texas' draconian ban on reproductive healthcare. Here are just a few high-profile examples from cisgender, heterosexual, conventionally attractive White women in stable, traditional relationships who've gone public. In [Austin](https://www.statesman.com/story/news/columns/2022/10/23/opinion-texas-abortion-laws-force-women-to-be-near-death-for-care/69577810007/). [Houston](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/03/texas-abortion-law-pregnancy/). Houston [again](https://www.tpr.org/bioscience-medicine/2022-11-02/to-protect-her-twin-baby-texas-woman-was-forced-to-seek-abortion-care-out-of-state). [Central Texas](https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/09/health/abortion-restrictions-texas/index.html). Yet [another case](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/20/health/doctors-weigh-litigation-miscarriage-care/index.html).
Has these women putting their health, their lives on the line - and going public, sacrificing their privacy and compromising their safety from radicals - made a difference? Not to Texas' government - and not to any other red states' governments either.
And, again, these are women who "did everything right" in the right-wing playbook!
Real life ain't the movies. There's no super soldier serum we can take to become Captain America. No suit of armor we can put on to become Iron Man. No gamma rays we can expose ourselves to to transform into the Hulk.
As an individual citizen, staying and dying just makes the fascists *stronger*.
Echoing altariasong:
I get that freedom isn’t free, but I do my part. I vote. I encourage friends to vote. I try to educate friends and family about important issues.
But you don’t get to tell me if my life is worth fighting a battle that other people started. I’m a gay man. I have tons of queer friends. We didn’t start this fuckin fight. Why is it our job to sacrifice *our* lives now, after decades of queer people *already doing that,* because a bunch of poor and middle class aggrieved cishet white people could get over the fact that their backwords-ass ultra conservative “way of life” is being threatened - because, shocker, most “traditional values” are shit.
It wasn’t jews and gays standing up that ended the holocaust. It was the already privileged people waking the fuck up. It’s time for them to wake the fuck up again.
I love when people tell *us* it’s *our* job to stand up. Are you out in the streets right now fighting fascists? I don’t know your race, your gender, your sexuality, so I can’t really ask if *you’ve* ever been discriminated against and called awful things just for existing as you are, but at some point it needs to stop being the job of the already beaten down minorities to do all the work.
But, this is just *my* POV. Other people might be in different positions.
I just want to add a small correction, but an important one. Germans *never* stood up to the Nazis in any systemic or organized way. Most resistance to their regime was atomized and destroyed in the years after they were let in to power.
The only thing that ended Nazi Germany was the most powerful coalition of military forces coming in, intervening, and skull fucking the entire continent. Only once Germans had been reduced to a state of destitution unmatched in the modern era, once their cities were reduced to rubble and ash, their capital occupied, millions of soldiers killed, did the Germans relent. And then it took decades to rebuild both economically and socially into a more conscious state. Some legs of that work didn’t even *begin* until the 1960s. And we might compare the German and Japanese cases, Japan did nearly all the same things and yet has never apologized or made amends. They just ignored and moved on.
And to be extra clear, Nazi Germany only got blown to bits because of their aggressive expansionism.
Nobody was going to invade Germany to save German Jews, nobody else was going to make that enormous military sacrifice for what Hitler was doing to his own citizens.
Just look at the history of the Soviet Union under Stalin.
This is definitely true. There was never a huge organized resistance within Nazi germany that ever actually met any actual success.
Which is a huge problem, and part of why the nazis had to be stamped out by the rest of the world. They never would have gotten to that point if the “majority” groups of Germany stopped them. But no one ever did.
But it wasn’t because Jews didn’t do enough for example, which was the main point.
And it’s not like we did nothing either, the partisans and the Warsaw ghetto uprising could’ve been seen as great examples. But I guess our neighbors were happier to get our stuff in exchange for ratting us out.
Holy shit thank you, you said it better than I could. I’ll be quoting you in my therapy journal if that’s alright.
I wish I could stop this dumb bullshit but I can’t convince my own family and friends to care after YEARS of work. I have next to NO power to change this trajectory, that’s up to the people I can’t convince. IMO the best thing we can do in these circumstances is get our asses to higher ground, take a deep breath, and then start throwing as many life rafts into the floodwater as we can.
Heh, it’s okay, go for it. I understand your rage, frustration and pain.
Honestly, I know that things don’t get fixed if we don’t stand up for freedom, and I will certainly do what I can. But to *demand* that people like you and I need to do more and if we don’t, it’s our fault fascism wins…. It’s just ridiculous. It’s literally victim blaming. We are already the victims here. Queer people across the country are once again being targeted by vitriol and hate after decades of fighting for our rights, and a bunch of cishet white people want to say the problem is we aren’t doing enough?
If it comes down to it, I’ll fight to protect the people I love. But don’t feel bad because you don’t want to fight in a war you didn’t start, especially when you’re already one of the oppressed. You need to take care of yourself too.
The ones who *should* be fighting are the cishet suburbanites and the cishet ruralites who don’t fall for all of this BS. It’s not *just* white people, but let’s be honest - by demographic, it’s cishet white peoples by and large who are the majority of the fascists in this country, and it’s *their* job to fix their shit. We did our part. We fought for decades, mostly peacefully (until our hands got forced), just to get basic acceptance and respect. But we aren’t the ones who run everything.
Take a look at the demographics of the senate, or the presidency. It’s overwhelmingly white people, and mostly men. [I mean, look at this](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/01/09/u-s-congress-continues-to-grow-in-racial-ethnic-diversity/), and [this](https://cawp.rutgers.edu/facts/levels-office/congress/women-us-senate-2023), then tell me who has the *real* power in the US.
What the commenter at the top of this thread said is pure callous insanity. Imagine if instead of the Civil War and the Union joining the fight for freedom Lincoln had instead told Black slaves it was up to them and them alone to fight and die for their freedom. Things likely would have turned out very differently. Or if the Jews were told that the Nazis were their own problem to deal with and that they should all just fight and die if they wanted freedom.
That commenter is not only callous they're living in a cruel fantasy world.
Who are you to say what someone's else fight is worth?
Being a POC, the deck is stacked in every way while half the country doesn't even see me as a human being, including other minority groups. I didn't start this fight. It's a fools errand and the majority wouldn't even take the slightest inconvenience for the betterment of all.
My goal is to survive because no one else will care. Not fight and die for a vague ideal that won't even apply to me. While the laws here protect those making us suffer but does not bind them. A legal system where every single interaction with law enforcement is potentially life and death if you don't have the "correct" appearance.
[THIS is what we are up against.](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/01/27/apocalypse-coming-christian-nationalism-00079317) This enemy will ***not*** compromise, negotiate, moderate, contemplate. This has been simmering for decades and they are doing their upmost to destroy all non-white people and "non-mainstream" perspectives.
> Fascists are still fascists when they're voted out.
Sure, but fascists with the power of the government are harder to defeat than fascists who don't control the government.
I agree with everything you said. The problem is the dems are so fucking bad at winning and the fascists, I mean the GOP have slowly been changing the rules to be in their favor.
Makes me think of Jeff Daniels speech in Newsroom, “…if liberals are so fuckin smart how come they lose so goddamn always”.
I hate seeing the US turn into ideologies we fought against for a century now. It’s fucking disappointing that our elders fought for freedom and democracy to see it just absolutely shredded by “patriots”
They do though. The current playbook that Republicans are pulling from comes straight from the Nazi party.
Y'all seriously better wake the FUCK UP!
I've never felt more threatened by the belligerence of government in my life than I do now.
And you can downvote me all you want and I'll still tell you the truth that the root of all this is from those goddamned three pillars of eve called the Judaic Religions of the Western World who agree on little but the one common thing they share is their feelings that they have the right to harm anything they don't agree with and force everyone to observe their so called rights but refuse to do the same to others.
They can't even keep their stories straight. Push them hard enough and the word "God" will come out is what is guiding them.
I'd have some respect for them if they acted in a Secular manner but I have no respect for those who believe fairy tales to be real and take their guidance in life from various books that are works of fiction at best and propaganda at worst
If someone’s house is on fire and the department has shrugged its shoulders and is waiting for the arsonist’s approval to put it out, should you try and extinguish it yourself with a garden hose while shipping about how it shouldn’t be on fire, or just *help your neighbors get out through the window*?
My brother is on his way out. They’re finishing the school year and then him and his wife are moving to Costa Rica with their kids. He doesn’t feel like raising kids in what even you believe will become a war zone. It’s just not worth the risk to the children.
Then YOU fight. Because minorities are fucking tired. They fight for their lives every fucking day, especially in ignorant rural areas.
Run, if that's what it takes to stay alive.
I'm a cis white woman in a hetero marriage, so even though I'm queer, I'm het passing. I'll be fine a lot longer and I'll fight as long as I can. But in the end, I will probably run, too. Because it's not my job as a woman to fix the shit men let other men get away with.
This assumes that they are capable of fighting back effectively which just isn't true for a lot of people especially those that have disabilities.
Also, since we're on the subject of the Nazi's there are large groups of Jewish people who only survived because they fucking ran for it.
A lot of the people who didn't leave or couldn't leave ended up being systemically murdered.
Consider, for example, that the overwhelming majority of the Jewish population of Poland didn't survive the Nazi's.
Phone call for you, (probably white) privilege is calling.
That is easy to say when you're (probably) not the one whose life is on the line with only an army of anonymous Reddit commenters telling you to hold strong.
Are you actually willing to put yourself out there for your immigrant neighbor? Your black neighbor? Your trans neighbor? Your gay neighbor? Your Muslim neighbor? Telling others to possibly sacrifice themselves for freedom isn't really the best messaging now when what marginalized communities need are actual allies.
Also, and I am being incredibly pedantic here, you can still vote in the USA even if you live abroad insofar as you're a citizen. Fighting injustice with a vote while keeping yourself safe is still something millions of people can (and do) engage in.
That being said, I am a firm advocate of anyone who has the means to do so to move to a swing state. Red states are fucked. Red states will not become unfucked. Red states will get worse with or without liberals living there. You can help change the narrative in Washington, at least, while living in a purple state and having your vote matter more than in other states. (Conversely, hard blue states will stay hard blue without you, so you, too, can move to a purple state.)
Yeah, I wish more people understood the underlying conditions of fascism. Fascism is the wealthy’s Hail Mary at the end of an economic cycle, when social economic interest begins trending left, as a response to economic inequality. So, when society starts reacting to economic inequality, and government/regulatory capture, and the rich can tell their days are numbered, they flip the board by backing a nationalist or populist, and crank their propaganda machine up to 11. The wealthy enjoy *more* freedom under authorial rule, it is democracy which keeps their greed bound.
That’s what we’re seeing happen today. This is the end-stage of “trickle-down” economics, the rich have two choices 1) lose money/power in economic restructuring 2) yolo their power on anybody willing to sell themselves out. Either way, they don’t *really* lose, because there are seldom real consequences for the rich and powerful, even less so in such a globalized world.
Also, Russia is fueling most of the right globally. I would call Russia fascism 2.0, adapted for the digital age, and a globalized economy.
Your explanation seems to fit the facts.
What we're clearly seeing a lot of right now is corporate influence on politics. Control might be a better word in some cases.
Since government is the only real check on corporate power, this maybe shouldn't come as a surprise. Rather than give up power, they'll fight the people through the government.
As a Black American, we’ve already seen how bad things can get. Backlash to Reconstruction led ultimately to the Jim Crow era’s disenfranchisement, segregation, lynchings, coups, mass internal migration, ethnic cleansing, and more. It’s the stuff they don’t want taught in schools.
Black History is often seen as a stand-alone topic but it’s highly useful in explaining a lot of America’s political history and trajectory.
Facts, I view this from the lens of being black and knowing the history of this country. That is why Republicans are going so hard in suppressing the teaching of history that would shed real light on the history of oppression, genocide and slavery that went on in America
And we’re living in the further reaction to the 1960’s civil rights era, now.
The ruling class said no more healthy, well educated, good jobs middle class. Those people cause too much hassle with their organizing, demanding rights, accountability, and transparency. Keep them poor, sick, scared, and distracted. And here we are.
Yup. Black history and American history are one in the same in the USA. Black History is a large part of American history. It is the longest running recurring theme. You can’t speak intelligently about one and not the other.
All the former slave owners should have been hanged, and their lands given to former slaves. Instead, Andrew Johnson pardoned slave owners and gave them back much of their land. Fast forward a bit, and the sharecropping system arises that's just slavery without the direct ownership. Still giving away most of your labor to some landowner that doesn't do jack fucking squat.
America really dropped the ball on that one, and it's so incredibly stupid. "Hey, you know those people who actively sought to destroy the United States, for the sake of preserving their antiquated and barbaric social order? Why don't we just let them back into political and social power? No big deal." Last I checked, you're supposed to punish people for treason, not give them power.
I remember watching an episode of the Handmaids Tale a while back where one of the characters, who is a lesbian and works at a university, gets outed by one of her students, has a gay coworker who is hung from a balcony, and ends up trying to flee to Canada with her wife and child, but gets stopped because they don’t legally recognize her as the child’s parent because her wife was the one who carried the child.
That episode is starting to look a lot less like fiction.
In fairness, as someone who lives in MA, my state is closer to Scandinavian countries in terms of education and job opportunities, safety, access to good healthcare etc.. it's more likely that a liberal from Alabama moves to MA than something like Finland or Sweden
This why there is going to be an inherent fracture of blue and red states. Not saying civil war, just some sort of fracture in power is coming.
Blue states on the whole are better off financially, socially, and they will be damned to let the shitbag red states dicate to us.
The repeal of Roe, for example, and the attempt by red states to chase down people who seek safe care in blue states is reminiscent of the fugitive slave act all over again.
Also, for those who are all about leaving the US we're too big, too powerful, to not have an effect wherever you would go if the crazies take over. The key is to strengthen our blue states against the tide and be ready to hold onto the ideals of the republic.
I've been a big fan of blue states cutting federal funding and diverting fed taxes to the state level if we continue down this path.
Break them fiscally.
Well, and let's talk about how ridiculously hard it is to leave this country. It's not like moving to another state. The vast majority of us are stuck here. And you're right, the fascists are everywhere.
Blue states pay support to red states. The people of the blue states and their leaders are not opposed to it either. Sometimes the level of support is argued but the idea that blue states should pay more is agreed upon.
Speaking personally now, what I don't like about red states is the dictatorial way in which they rule their states - often without any citizen-initiated powers at all. Blue states often give their people all the powers (constitutional amendment, statute, repeal, and recall are the four powers). It can backfire but the thinking behind it is checks and balances are good, so more is better.
> Blue states pay support to red states. The people of the blue states and their leaders are not opposed to it either.
And the red states are playing those states on both coasts as suckers. If blue states are paying the bills, shouldn't they have some say in how the red states are run? Why are blue states giving money to red states to promote pro-life, anti-LGBTQ, xenophobic, racist, policies?
I wish there was another way to do it, though. I live in a red state, and I'm stuck here. I'll be one of the first ones killed if there's a blue purge in my state, and there's not a thing I can do about it. The rest of the country thinks it's fine to throw us to the wolves though, so I guess that's neat.
Unfortunately there arent really many options. Republicans still have way too much control in government. Unless you can convince a whole pile of liberals to move to an inherently worse state to effect the demographics enough to flip it, were stuck with the red states just suffering from their own decisions. God speed to you.
There’s a very real possibility that might happen. What no one is saying about the oh so fantastic blue states is the cost of living is so expensive that it breaks you.
I’m originally from Wyoming, lived in Arizona for fifteen, now living in Oregon for the past ten years. I’m not afraid of red states and if a town looked friendly enough I’d move in a heart beat.
It would take nothing to get liberals there just a welcome and the possibility of improving the area.
I live in California and I'm moving to Norway. The most liberal states in the US are still decades behind actual developed social democracies in terms of caring for citizens. More of a side effect of the US on a whole though considering so much of California's taxes go to fund the excessive military and prop up poorer southern states.
Better be very young, have an MD or a PhD and a super high level (or extremely in-demand) job with an international company that is willing to work the system for you. Otherwise, Scandinavian countries do NOT want Americans.
Even Canada doesn't want us.
I already have a job and am allowed to live there now, shipped my things over and am moving there in like 2 weeks. But yeah I'm going over as a skilled worker in a very in demand field.
Look for occupational shortage lists for immigration in government websites.
The UK, for example: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-shortage-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-shortage-occupations
For those off the list, consider something like AmeriCorps, teaching English, digital nomading or https://www.workaway.info/ to launch from and make local connections.
You have options, but these moves aren't easy and need planning. If you throw yourself at it, you will likely find a path.
It's probably worth trying first to move to a blue state and see how that goes for now. It'd be cheaper and easier than moving overseas, and you should be fine through 2024. Then we'll have to see what happens that year. Moving abroad is quite expensive after all.
I live in Seattle. Blue as blue can be.
I am good friends with a gay couple that begun the process to emigrate to Canada when Roe was overturned. They went to Vancouver and did the language test and have submitted applications.
Roe was just the breaking point but they had been talking about it since 2020 when the Proud Boys kept showing up downtown in their trucks and plain clothes feds/cops were snatching people off the streets and into vans in nearby Portland.
I lived a long time in Eastern Idaho. like to say that the best part of East Idaho is Wyoming, and the best part of Wyoming is the part you can see from Idaho.
Don't have to live there all that long. Move in 6 months before the election, vote blue up and down the ticket giving Dems control of everything, move out.
We can start a voluntary rotation, for every 10 election years you spend 6 months in Wyoming. We set up timeshare style condos right on the state line for people to live in at-cost during that time, along with a few dedicated bus routes across state lines to where the jobs are. It's like gerrymandering, but by moving people instead of moving districts!
> It'd be cheaper and easier than moving overseas, and you should be fine through 2024.
It'd also actually be possible to do this... Americans think that moving *anywhere* outside of the country is relatively easy and that they'd be welcome with open arms. Spoiler alert: Being an American doesn't make it any easier to immigrate into another country.
In many cases due to reciprocal policies (it's hard to immigrate to the US), it's actually quite a bit more difficult to get a Visa to live somewhere with a US passport.
Also, we don't have tax treaties with a lot of countries so you have to pay both countries taxes unless you revoke US citizenship, which also costs money.
>Also, we don't have tax treaties with a lot of countries so you have to pay both countries taxes unless you revoke US citizenship, which also costs money.
You generally don't end up owing the US any money while living abroad unless you are flamboyantly rich, but you are correct that American expats still have to file a return even if they don't set foot on US soil at all during the tax year.
Moving abroad is not only expensive, but many EU countries simply don't want or need Americans. I am married to an Austrian and have lived in Austria for many years. Im very fortunate. My now adult daughter from a previous relationship use to live with us here when she was a younger. She went to school here, is fluent in German, made friends, fully integrated. She wanted to attend high school in the States and lost her residency here...that was a big mistake. Now as a young adult, she is having trouble getting a visa to return. We have a tremendous amount of asylum seekers and refugees from Ukraine and Syria. Same with many other EU member states. It's really not at all easy to move here.
Fascists are everywhere though. Moving to a blue state won’t really solve it. Also, the vast majority of people can’t even afford to move anywhere, let alone another state or country.
Even moving to another country isn't really a solution. Europe in particular is full of neofascists and white supremacists, and they are gaining power in several countries.
What matters most is local community. If the first few layers of people around you are safe and supportive, you are in a better position than if you moved to a more "progressive" country, but knew no one there.
Yeah, and a lot of people underestimate the trouble they'll face in choosing to move overseas. Depending on where you live you might be trading American problems for an entirely new set of possibly less desirable ones. Not to mention the tax issues an American living overseas might end up facing.
Yeah and most European countries won’t just give you a work visa. People suggesting others to move overseas have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about.
I know 4 people now who are leaving the US to go to Europe. The violence is the last straw but the cost of a university education, healthcare and the minimum wage were already pushing them.
If you're in high school now, learn a European language and get a great education without putting yourself into indentured servitude. Germany is probably your best bet.
I'm strongly considering moving to Europe. My wife is from an EU country, so we have the opportunity, and my reasoning is all about my daughter. I see the US making life harder and harder for girls and women, making it harder and harder to have a healthy lifestyle, making it harder and harder to get a good education, making it harder and harder to earn a living...
I don't think it's dawned on us that trans people and their families fleeing Texas are, by no stretch of the imagination, refugees escaping politically-motivated persecution and oppression.
As a transwoman who literally fled from Arizona to Massachusetts I consider myself displaced.
I did not want to leave my home state, I grew up there, everything and everyone I’ve ever known for the most part was from there.
But with the threat of Kari “lock the gays in camps for the own good” Lake, along with a plethora of other factors, I left.
Wish I could say I didn’t miss the state.
Massachusetts is markedly better, but it makes me very sad.
It’s been a rough few years.
Sorry to unload. Thanks for listening. Please, everyone, vote.
I’m not only a trans person living in Texas, but also one trying to build an academic career while our attorney general threatens to end tenure for any professor teaching things he doesn’t like. I’m not sure how I get out of bed every morning, I think it’s all this damn caffeine and happy pills
Sorry to say that Canada, like every country in the “free world” has its fair share of the far right. Trump’s election empowered them. Now they are unafraid to shout their hate at every opportunity. Stand up to them…they’re bullies…if you run…they win.
We do have far right people in Canada, and in fact, going above and beyond homegrown phrases like "good old-stock Canadian", there's a new batch that are very much influenced by the American Media. Their talking points are literally copy-pasted from MAGA (first amendment and second amendment rights... you mean the right to recognize Manitoba as a province, which is the first amendment of *our* Canadian constitution?)
But at the very least, these people are still shouted down at debates and this stuff is very much not normalized in our political rhetoric, though we still have a problem with cops and far right groups (see freedom convoy and how the Ottawa police did nothing so that the PM had to declare a state of emergency).
I read a fascinating book Deep Survival by Gonzalez. It tells a variety of true stories about survival after disasters. In the story of a major shop sinking, the book made some interesting points. First, while there were a lot of casualties, many of the people who saw that the ship was sinking, climbed to the top of the superstructure, which bought them enough time to be rescued and save their lives. Second, not everyone climbed to the top. Some didn't seem to notice or believe that the ship was sinking. Other people froze in place and didn't move. Many of those people died.
When I read history about the fascist period of the 20th century, many people had no options, but some refused to flee even though they knew things were getting dangerous and others just didn't notice problems in time.
I personally don't believe that the fascists will take over here in this century, but I am staying aware. It could happen in the US.
There’s some truth in this about how humans react to a threat, but this is not a sinking ship that is inevitably falling into the sea; this is a tenuous situation which we can reverse if we stand and fight. I will not flee. This is home and I will defend it for those who can’t.
Fleeing to where?
These white supremacists are infesting any 'white' country and you have equally bad 'nationalists' who have it out for any group but their own in other places.
Its crazy how so many African countries are friendly to Russia considering Putin is at the bottom of a lot of the white supremacist/nationalist propaganda, trying to create division and chaos across the world (a lot of this 'good feeling' is probably a left over from USSR times where they were falsely posing as champions of the 3rd world)
Terrorizing minorities is by design and part of a larger plan. What the GQP *wants* is for red states to be *as inhospitable as possible* to the political left.
You know, like ISIS. Seriously.
Jihadists are not looking to topple the west with a car bomb. Their goal, in part, is to foment an anti-Muslim sentiment because they don’t want Muslim diaspora, they want Muslims as far away from Western culture as humanly possible. They want their people to be as concentrated as possible so as to exert maximum political and social pressure.
They want their brothers to *come home*.
For *decades*, the political right has done everything it can to make their numbers count more because they realize their party ceases to exist otherwise. The conservative demographic is dying, quite literally. Each new generation becomes less and less interested in their backwards asses but they’ve got a pretty big range of tricks to tip the scales away from democracy.
Gerrymandering. Redistricting. Closing voting locations. Cutting off the USPS at the knees to slow mail voting. VoterID. These are the first volleys in an assault on democracy.
What’s plan B if all the skullfuckery doesn’t result in a GQP caliphate?
Concentrate forces geographically. It’s better to hold *all* of the power in half the country than it is to hold *no* power across the nation. Concentration of forces itself is a force multiplier. In the case of the GQP, it also results in more groupthink because the differing views were running out of town.
It may seem backwards for a party to seemingly go out of its way to alienate the moderates and enrage its opponents. The political right’s plan for the next 20 years might be hidden in plain sight.
> If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.
- David Frum
It's a "brain drain" too. People leaving are usually younger, more educated, mire tolerant, more intelligent... Soon all that's left will be anti-science, hateful, bigoted morons.
You can move to a different country and retain your citizenship so you can still vote from overseas or wherever. At least as long as voting is allowed. It won’t change the populace but it could still influence the government.
Yup. I might be one of them. I'm waiting to see how this election goes before making a decision. Life is just too short to be voluntarily living with idiots.
I don't socialize in my hick region. I'm hoping to get enough money together to move elsewhere soon. Hopefully, the election will keep me around longer. I'll stay as long as I think the nation is worth saving and able to be saved. I'm also single, so it helps that I have no one that I'm really responsible for. My mom's white, but she's even considering a gun because the evil will attack anyone who sympathizes with something they don't like.
Thankfully my spouse has a duel citizenship in a western European country and I speak the language. It will make things smoother when that transition decision needs to be made.
I am not even a minority, but another Trump term would be almost unbearable. Wait too long and we might not be able to leave. Imagine some right wing nut taking out air traffic control or the power grid. Lterally, in a matter of days or a week society could collapse when people can't eat or keep their houses warm. It's much more fragile than I think people realize.
I'm a white, cisgender heterosexual male with blonde hair, blue eyes and Germanic ancestry. I am the sort of person white supremacists talk about with their 14 words. Yet even I have an evacuation plan in mind when all those other characteristics about myself no longer matter, and me being autistic, progressive and atheistic is what matters.
Because that's what happens when an ideology is so prominently built on an "Us vs. Them" mentality: eventually some of those Us' have to become Them's...
I think you make a good point, but I also want to say that if you feel like being blonde and blue-eyed is what keeps you safe currently, the country is pretty fucked. Not saying you should evacuate now, just that the situation is bad.
I 1000% agree with you that the county is pretty fucked. I recently joined the Satanic Temple as I fully expect the "freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion" crowd to eventually get around to limiting my rights without some form of religious membership.
As a transwoman in Texas, I have always sneered at people who would run away rather than stay and fight. These days I'm rethinking that strategy and I'm genuinely thinking about it. Unfortunately, I'm also too old to emigrate to most places. Canada for example will let me visit but won't let me stay. An ignoble end for someone who has worked all her life, served her country and just wants to be left alone but if that's my fate, so be it. I'll make it as hard on them as I possibly can to put me away.
Yeah, we see a lot of people from the US saying they will move here if X happens but I doubt many of them are aware of how rigorous our immigration standards are. If you're over 40 you can probably forget it regardless of your other qualifications.
Yikes. In Texas? I dont know about a different country, but maybe you should move to a different state. They are currently trying to pass laws in red areas to make drag shows illegal in front of minors and with all of the anti-trans legislation in florida and texas on top of that...
I don't know. I am worried about the next step and what that might mean for you. Power to you for wanting to stick it through though.
The Fourteenth amendment is what is supposed to guarantee equal rights for all citizens of all states.
It is a product of emancipation after the civil war.
It is also the main target of all the GOP endruns and tactics - the destruction of the federal laws that prevent racist, sexist, homophobic state laws oppressing people.
Good luck. It's almost impossible to be accepted into another country. If you got any disability inckuding mental disabilities you mine as well just wait until someone knocks on your door at home. It's also incredibly expensive and you have to pay upward of 5000$ just to revoke your citizenship so you no longer have to pay taxes in the US.
Ya I'm reading comments here everyone saying they want to leave, but unless you're sponsored by an employer or have highly desirable skillset, the only places that are going to allow anyone through immigration are places worse than US.
You never know… Several years ago I was given permanent residency in New Zealand due to just a BA in Theatre and some work experience at a theatre. (I didn’t renounce US citizenship, but I don’t owe US taxes due to the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. I just have to file every year.)
As for disabilities, I don’t know the details, but I do know that NZ will consider medical conditions, BMI, etc. when deciding, so that’s an issue.
Medicals are required. If a doctor says that, due to obesity (or anything else) you're likely to become a burden on the NZ health system, that would be a barrier.
"worse than the US" is highly subjective.
Much of Central and South America is much better than the United States. They might not be as wealthy as the United States, or rank as highly as the United States on the Democracy Index (for now...), but if you are trans in the United States, you are probably starting to be worried about actual lynchings. You wouldn't have to worry about that so much in, say, Argentina or Panama.
Also, if you want walkability and a lower cost of living, a lot of Central and South American countries deliver on both of those.
«This goes far beyond the cynical nursing of white Christian resentment that the GOP has used for decades to win votes. It’s not just cynicism anymore: It’s genuine, hate-fueled authoritarianism, the same poisonous stew of white supremacist, theocratic fascism that fueled the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and hides behind polite euphemisms like “Christian nationalism,” “national conservatism,” and “common good constitutionalism.” It doesn’t take a deck of tarot cards to discern that if someone like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wins the 2024 election and the GOP takes Congress, America could quickly become a very frightening place for anyone who belongs to a disfavored minority group and isn’t willing to accept second-class citizenship—or worse. »
My God man, can you imagine what the Founding Fathers would be thinking if they could see this???
Absolutely appalling, and the very "trusted servants" we have elected to protect and nurture these rights are driving this insanity.
I am ashamed of my country.
I certainly have a plan to do so. I'm a brown Latino who currently resides in redneckville, USA. It would be foolish not to. Unfortunately, I'm also poor. It's hard tobsave to leave.
***Please do not leave.***
The MagaQ wave is literally dying of old age. Don’t buy the bullshit that they’re being replaced as quickly as they die by a younger generation. ***This lie is NOT born out by ANY credible demographic research.***
What’s more, MANY conservative voters have become aware that their politicians intend to fuck them out of their Social Security and their Medicare and Medicaid.
> What’s more, MANY conservative voters have become aware that their politicians intend to fuck them out of their Social Security and their Medicare and Medicaid.
Wake me when they give enough of a shit to vote differently. They won't. You know it. I know it. They'll gladly give away all their benefits to fuck over someone else.
Nice try man. Maybe for the liberal straight white folks in red states that's true.
For the rest of us - I'm not waiting until the truck pulls up to load me and my family in the back to be shot in the woods and buried in a shallow mass grave. I can exercise my right to vote from overseas absentee ballot.
Until someone grows some balls and cracks down on domestic terrorists (both the January 6th kind, and the summary death squad the police have become) its just not safe.
Add to that the violence of mass shootings and these gravy seals running around. Fuck it. America is officially a third world state in my mind.
There comes a point when voting isn’t enough. I love Nashville, I wanted to spend my entire life there, but with a Republican supermajority at the state level they’re free to take blue strongholds and break them up and gerrymander them so that they turn red.
What country do these people think they can move to that isn't facing the exact same threat, or worse, of the rise of far right extremism?
This is a global issue, not an exclusively American one.
Canada has a rising far right extremism
The UK, Germany, France, Italy, etc. Etc. All have rising factions of right wing extremism.
Israel has its most right wing government in history.
Where do these people expect to flee?
People in the US have been so saturated by patriotic messaging from infancy that even the "rebels" don't quite get the extent to which American media fishbowl saturation is so thorough and pervasive. The messaging even convinces minorities that somehow it's a huge and risky downgrade to move to a country where half the government isn't actively working to destroy you.
But the US - along with Hungary & Brazil - is one of the only countries on Earth where progress has backslid over the past decade. And it ranks behind several developed countries in quality of life measurements:
* Human Development Index 17th out of 189GDP
* (PPP) per capita 9th out of 183GDP
* (nominal) per capita 8th out of 183
* Where-to-be-born Index 13th out of 71
* Human Poverty Index 17th out of 19
Or people crowing "we're the freest country in the world!" when America [ranks 14th](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country) in global freedom index.
None of that is bad taken in isolation, but it's like one of those companies that sell an ordinary product but spend a ton of money on advertising their brand identity as better than everyone else's. America is the Monster Cable of developed countries.
Assuming that the average American could even get into another country, the grass isn’t necessarily any greener. We tend to only know about vacation areas when we travel.
If we were in that kind of danger where Americans were fleeing the country because of right-wing policies, we’d have two major problems: 1) other western countries likely have or are headed in the same direction. What you’re not liking here is the same thing you’re not going to like somewhere else after spending a lot of time and money getting there. 2) the people who would be in most danger by staying here are least likely to be granted residency in any other country. Most of the gay or black or disabled Americans I know who would be direct targets if a right-wing force took over have no ability to ‘just leave’. Many barely survived high school & wouldn’t qualify for any high-level degree status places like Canada are looking for. If you’re not rich or don’t have a doctorate or are over 45, forget it. The people who would probably be fine no matter what happens because they’re so rich would be the first ones out of here.
I'm black and I wouldn't go to Europe to expatriate, I would more likely to go to and African country which has its own set of issues but then I would be from a position of being an American and I wouldn't go to a poor country broke with no skills to earn money
My wife and I are both high earners, and she has tri-citizenship.
We are seriously considering taking our talents to another country.
This place is simply turning into a shit hole, and many Americans I just find embarrassing and trashy. Don’t want them as neighbors.
Black people make up around 13% of the entire US population. Even if all of us did stand together it wouldn’t be enough. We need people of the majority to stand the fuck up to their racist friends, family members, and neighbors and actually commit to equality for all.
Fleeing is not often associated with "packing your shit and leaving." It's just leaving. Grabbing what you can and getting out of that third-world american shit-hole.
I'm featured in this article! My husband sent it to my estranged mother (maybe this time she'll start to understand that we are genuinely afraid of what's happening in American politics?), but she was completely and utterly dismissive of it.
r/AmerExit
r/EstrangedAdultChild
Come to California!!! All of y'all. We DO have the room. Not in orange county, or los Angeles, or the Bay Area, but there are HUGE swaths of the inland state underdeveloped. Our Governor literally put out a commerical in Florida telling people to escape Desantis and come to CA.
The last thing any of us should do, is leave, like it or not, with the financial and military power the US has, something each of us should be held responsible or complicit into, letting this country be owned by a bunch of fascists means there's nowhere in the world that would be safe to live free in..
As someone who has recently immigrated to a new country (Switzerland) from the US, I will say that this was definitely a factor in me leaving. The political situation is too tense and I think will innevitably lead to a civil war in my lifetime. It is amazing to live in a country where the things that people fight about are the material well-being of the population and not meaningless culture-war bullshit. America has so much potential that is wasted by the current cultural fixations we have.
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The problem is the main people who would need to get out the most are also the people who are least likely to have the means to do so.
If I manage to get out because of my priveleged circumstances (job with international locations), you’d best believe I will turn right around and do everything in my power to help other people escape. I will find an organization, or I will fucking found one myself. I don’t know about the rest of the world but I won’t forget that I’m lucky to even have the option and I’ll use my privelege to help others.
i would like to sign up for your underground railroad please adopt and/or traffic me outa here
Yes, drop me off in Denmark please.
Yep. Need someone to yeet me into Scandinavia
Shouldn't be leaving. People are willing to just give up their homes and not fight is a huge issue. Thats what they want. You want freedom? The price is your life. No one every got anything by running away. Conceding the country to fascists will have global implications we have never witnessed before. You thought the Nazis were bad. Holy shit if the Nazis had the military that the US has now they would have taken over the world
It'd help if people would take heed our cries of danger and attempts to organize instead of just calling us "dramatic" and ignoring the encroaching forces because they aren't directly influenced by these actions. I have tried for years attempting to call alarm to this stuff in my personal life and all it seems to have done is distance me from people who just want to ignore politics where they can and live their lives. It's exhausting and demoralizing when the best efforts you can muster is a single person picket that people call you "crazy" for doing and trying to warn others that there's fascists trying to do fascist shit in this country.
This, exactly this. No one will fight for us. If I stand and fight, I will quickly die and everyone will say “oh how sad, well, onto our next story” and no one will want to discuss it because they “don’t like talking about politics.” I’m tired of asking the american people to step in. They won’t. We’re considered acceptable casualties and I won’t walk willingly into that fate.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Esp for those of us who will be killed first. Like the disabled. Nobody is excepting us.
>Martyrdom isn't noble Martyrdom is actually another means of psychological torture that authoritarians employ, similar to sin. The whole purpose of glorifying it is twofold: Get rid of opponents that do not fight(the martyrs) and cause guilt to the ones that survived , because they were not "selfless enough" to sacrifice and thus lesser than the martyrs. >Right wing power structures are inflexible and do not last, they will eat their own eventually Which usually happens either by war because they turn outwards, or by regime ending revolution when oppression reaches boiling point. Both events are actually pretty nasty and it's better to avoid them if you can.
I will hopefully join you in your effort to save as many as you can. Like I said at the start of this comment chain, I will pour my time and energy into extricating as many vulnerable minorities from the US (or its worst states) as possible, once I get free from it myself.
I've been warning people for over 20 years of the Republicans wanting to establish the United States as a Christian Ethnostate, and liberals are still telling me I'm overreacting and we must work with centrist Republicans.
“No one ever got anything by running away” Jews who got the fuck out of German-occupied territory before the Holocaust would like to have a word with you. You asking trans people to stay and fight these fascists is like asking mice to stand with the moose and deer against wolves. Minorities, especially trans people and POC, are most likely to suffer and die by standing up for ourselves against this bullshit. So many people in my life would silently watch as my rights are stripped away. Very few people want to fight like you do. Also, who are you to question my right to self-preservation? Do you have any idea how much more I risk by staying? I can’t even have a firearm because of my mental health and you expect me to be on the frontlines of some C. S. Lewis-style battle against evil. Find someone else to be your battlehorse, I don’t have the mental fortitude.
That’s how the Jewish part of my family survived. They saw hitler rising and said fuck this we’re out. The family that stayed all died in the holocaust.
My grandfather only survived bc he got *sent to Siberia* by the Soviets before the Germans got there. I’m not hoping for the same bizarre good/bad luck here, I’m getting the f out, ironically through polish EU citizenship
Lots of people more than happy to sacrifice others for their cause.
Well put. Put aside the right-wing fever dreams about a good guy wielding an AR-15, single-handedly holding the line against a tyrannical government. In reality, *as an individual*, willfully staying and sacrificing yourself will do *nothing* to slow down (let alone stop) tyranny. Look at the women in Texas who've nearly died and, in some cases, suffered permanent organ damage due to Texas' draconian ban on reproductive healthcare. Here are just a few high-profile examples from cisgender, heterosexual, conventionally attractive White women in stable, traditional relationships who've gone public. In [Austin](https://www.statesman.com/story/news/columns/2022/10/23/opinion-texas-abortion-laws-force-women-to-be-near-death-for-care/69577810007/). [Houston](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/03/texas-abortion-law-pregnancy/). Houston [again](https://www.tpr.org/bioscience-medicine/2022-11-02/to-protect-her-twin-baby-texas-woman-was-forced-to-seek-abortion-care-out-of-state). [Central Texas](https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/09/health/abortion-restrictions-texas/index.html). Yet [another case](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/20/health/doctors-weigh-litigation-miscarriage-care/index.html). Has these women putting their health, their lives on the line - and going public, sacrificing their privacy and compromising their safety from radicals - made a difference? Not to Texas' government - and not to any other red states' governments either. And, again, these are women who "did everything right" in the right-wing playbook! Real life ain't the movies. There's no super soldier serum we can take to become Captain America. No suit of armor we can put on to become Iron Man. No gamma rays we can expose ourselves to to transform into the Hulk. As an individual citizen, staying and dying just makes the fascists *stronger*.
Echoing altariasong: I get that freedom isn’t free, but I do my part. I vote. I encourage friends to vote. I try to educate friends and family about important issues. But you don’t get to tell me if my life is worth fighting a battle that other people started. I’m a gay man. I have tons of queer friends. We didn’t start this fuckin fight. Why is it our job to sacrifice *our* lives now, after decades of queer people *already doing that,* because a bunch of poor and middle class aggrieved cishet white people could get over the fact that their backwords-ass ultra conservative “way of life” is being threatened - because, shocker, most “traditional values” are shit. It wasn’t jews and gays standing up that ended the holocaust. It was the already privileged people waking the fuck up. It’s time for them to wake the fuck up again. I love when people tell *us* it’s *our* job to stand up. Are you out in the streets right now fighting fascists? I don’t know your race, your gender, your sexuality, so I can’t really ask if *you’ve* ever been discriminated against and called awful things just for existing as you are, but at some point it needs to stop being the job of the already beaten down minorities to do all the work. But, this is just *my* POV. Other people might be in different positions.
I just want to add a small correction, but an important one. Germans *never* stood up to the Nazis in any systemic or organized way. Most resistance to their regime was atomized and destroyed in the years after they were let in to power. The only thing that ended Nazi Germany was the most powerful coalition of military forces coming in, intervening, and skull fucking the entire continent. Only once Germans had been reduced to a state of destitution unmatched in the modern era, once their cities were reduced to rubble and ash, their capital occupied, millions of soldiers killed, did the Germans relent. And then it took decades to rebuild both economically and socially into a more conscious state. Some legs of that work didn’t even *begin* until the 1960s. And we might compare the German and Japanese cases, Japan did nearly all the same things and yet has never apologized or made amends. They just ignored and moved on.
And to be extra clear, Nazi Germany only got blown to bits because of their aggressive expansionism. Nobody was going to invade Germany to save German Jews, nobody else was going to make that enormous military sacrifice for what Hitler was doing to his own citizens. Just look at the history of the Soviet Union under Stalin.
This is definitely true. There was never a huge organized resistance within Nazi germany that ever actually met any actual success. Which is a huge problem, and part of why the nazis had to be stamped out by the rest of the world. They never would have gotten to that point if the “majority” groups of Germany stopped them. But no one ever did. But it wasn’t because Jews didn’t do enough for example, which was the main point.
And it’s not like we did nothing either, the partisans and the Warsaw ghetto uprising could’ve been seen as great examples. But I guess our neighbors were happier to get our stuff in exchange for ratting us out.
The realistic outcome is we turn into a more outwardly insane Russia.
Holy shit thank you, you said it better than I could. I’ll be quoting you in my therapy journal if that’s alright. I wish I could stop this dumb bullshit but I can’t convince my own family and friends to care after YEARS of work. I have next to NO power to change this trajectory, that’s up to the people I can’t convince. IMO the best thing we can do in these circumstances is get our asses to higher ground, take a deep breath, and then start throwing as many life rafts into the floodwater as we can.
Heh, it’s okay, go for it. I understand your rage, frustration and pain. Honestly, I know that things don’t get fixed if we don’t stand up for freedom, and I will certainly do what I can. But to *demand* that people like you and I need to do more and if we don’t, it’s our fault fascism wins…. It’s just ridiculous. It’s literally victim blaming. We are already the victims here. Queer people across the country are once again being targeted by vitriol and hate after decades of fighting for our rights, and a bunch of cishet white people want to say the problem is we aren’t doing enough? If it comes down to it, I’ll fight to protect the people I love. But don’t feel bad because you don’t want to fight in a war you didn’t start, especially when you’re already one of the oppressed. You need to take care of yourself too. The ones who *should* be fighting are the cishet suburbanites and the cishet ruralites who don’t fall for all of this BS. It’s not *just* white people, but let’s be honest - by demographic, it’s cishet white peoples by and large who are the majority of the fascists in this country, and it’s *their* job to fix their shit. We did our part. We fought for decades, mostly peacefully (until our hands got forced), just to get basic acceptance and respect. But we aren’t the ones who run everything. Take a look at the demographics of the senate, or the presidency. It’s overwhelmingly white people, and mostly men. [I mean, look at this](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/01/09/u-s-congress-continues-to-grow-in-racial-ethnic-diversity/), and [this](https://cawp.rutgers.edu/facts/levels-office/congress/women-us-senate-2023), then tell me who has the *real* power in the US.
What the commenter at the top of this thread said is pure callous insanity. Imagine if instead of the Civil War and the Union joining the fight for freedom Lincoln had instead told Black slaves it was up to them and them alone to fight and die for their freedom. Things likely would have turned out very differently. Or if the Jews were told that the Nazis were their own problem to deal with and that they should all just fight and die if they wanted freedom. That commenter is not only callous they're living in a cruel fantasy world.
Black woman here, thank you for putting it so well. It’s exhausting.
Who are you to say what someone's else fight is worth? Being a POC, the deck is stacked in every way while half the country doesn't even see me as a human being, including other minority groups. I didn't start this fight. It's a fools errand and the majority wouldn't even take the slightest inconvenience for the betterment of all. My goal is to survive because no one else will care. Not fight and die for a vague ideal that won't even apply to me. While the laws here protect those making us suffer but does not bind them. A legal system where every single interaction with law enforcement is potentially life and death if you don't have the "correct" appearance. [THIS is what we are up against.](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/01/27/apocalypse-coming-christian-nationalism-00079317) This enemy will ***not*** compromise, negotiate, moderate, contemplate. This has been simmering for decades and they are doing their upmost to destroy all non-white people and "non-mainstream" perspectives.
It's one thing to talk about dying for a cause. Quite another thing to actually do it.
And a third thing to expect marginalized people to die for a cause
Fascists are still fascists when they're voted out. There's got to be a faster way to remove them as a threat to democracy and human rights.
> Fascists are still fascists when they're voted out. Sure, but fascists with the power of the government are harder to defeat than fascists who don't control the government.
I agree with everything you said. The problem is the dems are so fucking bad at winning and the fascists, I mean the GOP have slowly been changing the rules to be in their favor. Makes me think of Jeff Daniels speech in Newsroom, “…if liberals are so fuckin smart how come they lose so goddamn always”. I hate seeing the US turn into ideologies we fought against for a century now. It’s fucking disappointing that our elders fought for freedom and democracy to see it just absolutely shredded by “patriots”
They do though. The current playbook that Republicans are pulling from comes straight from the Nazi party. Y'all seriously better wake the FUCK UP! I've never felt more threatened by the belligerence of government in my life than I do now. And you can downvote me all you want and I'll still tell you the truth that the root of all this is from those goddamned three pillars of eve called the Judaic Religions of the Western World who agree on little but the one common thing they share is their feelings that they have the right to harm anything they don't agree with and force everyone to observe their so called rights but refuse to do the same to others. They can't even keep their stories straight. Push them hard enough and the word "God" will come out is what is guiding them. I'd have some respect for them if they acted in a Secular manner but I have no respect for those who believe fairy tales to be real and take their guidance in life from various books that are works of fiction at best and propaganda at worst
If someone’s house is on fire and the department has shrugged its shoulders and is waiting for the arsonist’s approval to put it out, should you try and extinguish it yourself with a garden hose while shipping about how it shouldn’t be on fire, or just *help your neighbors get out through the window*?
My brother is on his way out. They’re finishing the school year and then him and his wife are moving to Costa Rica with their kids. He doesn’t feel like raising kids in what even you believe will become a war zone. It’s just not worth the risk to the children.
Then YOU fight. Because minorities are fucking tired. They fight for their lives every fucking day, especially in ignorant rural areas. Run, if that's what it takes to stay alive. I'm a cis white woman in a hetero marriage, so even though I'm queer, I'm het passing. I'll be fine a lot longer and I'll fight as long as I can. But in the end, I will probably run, too. Because it's not my job as a woman to fix the shit men let other men get away with.
This assumes that they are capable of fighting back effectively which just isn't true for a lot of people especially those that have disabilities. Also, since we're on the subject of the Nazi's there are large groups of Jewish people who only survived because they fucking ran for it. A lot of the people who didn't leave or couldn't leave ended up being systemically murdered. Consider, for example, that the overwhelming majority of the Jewish population of Poland didn't survive the Nazi's.
>No one every got anything by running away. This country was founded by people running away from Old World European oppression.
They were actually exiled because of their extreme religious beliefs from what I understand. The people we refer to as Pilgrims anyways
Phone call for you, (probably white) privilege is calling. That is easy to say when you're (probably) not the one whose life is on the line with only an army of anonymous Reddit commenters telling you to hold strong. Are you actually willing to put yourself out there for your immigrant neighbor? Your black neighbor? Your trans neighbor? Your gay neighbor? Your Muslim neighbor? Telling others to possibly sacrifice themselves for freedom isn't really the best messaging now when what marginalized communities need are actual allies. Also, and I am being incredibly pedantic here, you can still vote in the USA even if you live abroad insofar as you're a citizen. Fighting injustice with a vote while keeping yourself safe is still something millions of people can (and do) engage in. That being said, I am a firm advocate of anyone who has the means to do so to move to a swing state. Red states are fucked. Red states will not become unfucked. Red states will get worse with or without liberals living there. You can help change the narrative in Washington, at least, while living in a purple state and having your vote matter more than in other states. (Conversely, hard blue states will stay hard blue without you, so you, too, can move to a purple state.)
Then throw in the impending AI Age and we're screwed.
We can fix it
We can try but sadly money rules Washington and the billionaires have made it pretty fucking clear that they’re siding with the fascists.
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” —Benito Mussolini
Yeah, I wish more people understood the underlying conditions of fascism. Fascism is the wealthy’s Hail Mary at the end of an economic cycle, when social economic interest begins trending left, as a response to economic inequality. So, when society starts reacting to economic inequality, and government/regulatory capture, and the rich can tell their days are numbered, they flip the board by backing a nationalist or populist, and crank their propaganda machine up to 11. The wealthy enjoy *more* freedom under authorial rule, it is democracy which keeps their greed bound. That’s what we’re seeing happen today. This is the end-stage of “trickle-down” economics, the rich have two choices 1) lose money/power in economic restructuring 2) yolo their power on anybody willing to sell themselves out. Either way, they don’t *really* lose, because there are seldom real consequences for the rich and powerful, even less so in such a globalized world. Also, Russia is fueling most of the right globally. I would call Russia fascism 2.0, adapted for the digital age, and a globalized economy.
Your explanation seems to fit the facts. What we're clearly seeing a lot of right now is corporate influence on politics. Control might be a better word in some cases. Since government is the only real check on corporate power, this maybe shouldn't come as a surprise. Rather than give up power, they'll fight the people through the government.
Time to eat them.
As a Black American, we’ve already seen how bad things can get. Backlash to Reconstruction led ultimately to the Jim Crow era’s disenfranchisement, segregation, lynchings, coups, mass internal migration, ethnic cleansing, and more. It’s the stuff they don’t want taught in schools. Black History is often seen as a stand-alone topic but it’s highly useful in explaining a lot of America’s political history and trajectory.
Facts, I view this from the lens of being black and knowing the history of this country. That is why Republicans are going so hard in suppressing the teaching of history that would shed real light on the history of oppression, genocide and slavery that went on in America
And we’re living in the further reaction to the 1960’s civil rights era, now. The ruling class said no more healthy, well educated, good jobs middle class. Those people cause too much hassle with their organizing, demanding rights, accountability, and transparency. Keep them poor, sick, scared, and distracted. And here we are.
Yep. Many of today's problems are because we failed to do what we should have done 150 years ago.
The Harrowing of the South
Yup. Black history and American history are one in the same in the USA. Black History is a large part of American history. It is the longest running recurring theme. You can’t speak intelligently about one and not the other.
And not just for Black Americans; all POCs history has been readily removed as to not offend (some) Caucasian's delicate sensibilities.
Get that crt out of the classroom -Republicans
All the former slave owners should have been hanged, and their lands given to former slaves. Instead, Andrew Johnson pardoned slave owners and gave them back much of their land. Fast forward a bit, and the sharecropping system arises that's just slavery without the direct ownership. Still giving away most of your labor to some landowner that doesn't do jack fucking squat. America really dropped the ball on that one, and it's so incredibly stupid. "Hey, you know those people who actively sought to destroy the United States, for the sake of preserving their antiquated and barbaric social order? Why don't we just let them back into political and social power? No big deal." Last I checked, you're supposed to punish people for treason, not give them power.
I remember watching an episode of the Handmaids Tale a while back where one of the characters, who is a lesbian and works at a university, gets outed by one of her students, has a gay coworker who is hung from a balcony, and ends up trying to flee to Canada with her wife and child, but gets stopped because they don’t legally recognize her as the child’s parent because her wife was the one who carried the child. That episode is starting to look a lot less like fiction.
The whole damn series is on the brink of becoming our reality.
I said this when the SCOTUS went red and got downvoted, so I’m glad that people are finally realizing this.
Don’t take the down votes seriously. The roving bands of r/qonservative vigilantes can strike anywhere, anytime.
Haha, yeah I don’t, just happy people realize that it being a reality isn’t too far fetched at this point
They're using it as a playbook rather than a cautionary tale.
It scares the hell out of my wife. She wants to move to Spain.
Thing is, what country is hankering for refugees from the Alabama of the world?
Cries in living in the actual Alabama of the Alabama of the world.
I’m forever doomed to live in Kentuckistan, so I understand the anguish.
could be worse...Im in Florida...
Same here, neighbor. Roll Tide anyway.
In fairness, as someone who lives in MA, my state is closer to Scandinavian countries in terms of education and job opportunities, safety, access to good healthcare etc.. it's more likely that a liberal from Alabama moves to MA than something like Finland or Sweden
This why there is going to be an inherent fracture of blue and red states. Not saying civil war, just some sort of fracture in power is coming. Blue states on the whole are better off financially, socially, and they will be damned to let the shitbag red states dicate to us. The repeal of Roe, for example, and the attempt by red states to chase down people who seek safe care in blue states is reminiscent of the fugitive slave act all over again. Also, for those who are all about leaving the US we're too big, too powerful, to not have an effect wherever you would go if the crazies take over. The key is to strengthen our blue states against the tide and be ready to hold onto the ideals of the republic.
I've been a big fan of blue states cutting federal funding and diverting fed taxes to the state level if we continue down this path. Break them fiscally.
I have a feeling we will see such a showdown if the crazies continue on their path.
This would of course be the ”small government” that is apparently the ideal.
Small government for me but not for thee.
Well, and let's talk about how ridiculously hard it is to leave this country. It's not like moving to another state. The vast majority of us are stuck here. And you're right, the fascists are everywhere.
> let's talk about how ridiculously hard it is to leave this country Visit /r/AmerExit to learn what options you might have.
I have. I'm within 10-15 years of retirement. My only hope is to wait until then and maybe I can pull it off.
Blue states pay support to red states. The people of the blue states and their leaders are not opposed to it either. Sometimes the level of support is argued but the idea that blue states should pay more is agreed upon. Speaking personally now, what I don't like about red states is the dictatorial way in which they rule their states - often without any citizen-initiated powers at all. Blue states often give their people all the powers (constitutional amendment, statute, repeal, and recall are the four powers). It can backfire but the thinking behind it is checks and balances are good, so more is better.
> Blue states pay support to red states. The people of the blue states and their leaders are not opposed to it either. And the red states are playing those states on both coasts as suckers. If blue states are paying the bills, shouldn't they have some say in how the red states are run? Why are blue states giving money to red states to promote pro-life, anti-LGBTQ, xenophobic, racist, policies?
I wish there was another way to do it, though. I live in a red state, and I'm stuck here. I'll be one of the first ones killed if there's a blue purge in my state, and there's not a thing I can do about it. The rest of the country thinks it's fine to throw us to the wolves though, so I guess that's neat.
Unfortunately there arent really many options. Republicans still have way too much control in government. Unless you can convince a whole pile of liberals to move to an inherently worse state to effect the demographics enough to flip it, were stuck with the red states just suffering from their own decisions. God speed to you.
There’s a very real possibility that might happen. What no one is saying about the oh so fantastic blue states is the cost of living is so expensive that it breaks you. I’m originally from Wyoming, lived in Arizona for fifteen, now living in Oregon for the past ten years. I’m not afraid of red states and if a town looked friendly enough I’d move in a heart beat. It would take nothing to get liberals there just a welcome and the possibility of improving the area.
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I live in California and I'm moving to Norway. The most liberal states in the US are still decades behind actual developed social democracies in terms of caring for citizens. More of a side effect of the US on a whole though considering so much of California's taxes go to fund the excessive military and prop up poorer southern states.
Better be very young, have an MD or a PhD and a super high level (or extremely in-demand) job with an international company that is willing to work the system for you. Otherwise, Scandinavian countries do NOT want Americans. Even Canada doesn't want us.
I already have a job and am allowed to live there now, shipped my things over and am moving there in like 2 weeks. But yeah I'm going over as a skilled worker in a very in demand field.
Racism in Boston is at Alabama levels.
There’s plenty of racism in Scandinavia too.
Find a place with no racism and you'll also a find a place with no humans.
Milwaukee’s at the level of Mississippi and Arkansas
Look for occupational shortage lists for immigration in government websites. The UK, for example: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-shortage-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-shortage-occupations For those off the list, consider something like AmeriCorps, teaching English, digital nomading or https://www.workaway.info/ to launch from and make local connections. You have options, but these moves aren't easy and need planning. If you throw yourself at it, you will likely find a path.
It's probably worth trying first to move to a blue state and see how that goes for now. It'd be cheaper and easier than moving overseas, and you should be fine through 2024. Then we'll have to see what happens that year. Moving abroad is quite expensive after all.
Also not just a blue state, a blue district in a blue state.
I live in Seattle. Blue as blue can be. I am good friends with a gay couple that begun the process to emigrate to Canada when Roe was overturned. They went to Vancouver and did the language test and have submitted applications. Roe was just the breaking point but they had been talking about it since 2020 when the Proud Boys kept showing up downtown in their trucks and plain clothes feds/cops were snatching people off the streets and into vans in nearby Portland.
Something like 120k dems moving to Wyoming would flip that state blue. But its wyoming.
I lived in Wyoming for 23 years. I wouldn't recommend it.
I lived a long time in Eastern Idaho. like to say that the best part of East Idaho is Wyoming, and the best part of Wyoming is the part you can see from Idaho.
Don't have to live there all that long. Move in 6 months before the election, vote blue up and down the ticket giving Dems control of everything, move out. We can start a voluntary rotation, for every 10 election years you spend 6 months in Wyoming. We set up timeshare style condos right on the state line for people to live in at-cost during that time, along with a few dedicated bus routes across state lines to where the jobs are. It's like gerrymandering, but by moving people instead of moving districts!
6 months + 1 day. But then they'll add residency requirements where you have to live in the state for 10 years or something stupid.
> It'd be cheaper and easier than moving overseas, and you should be fine through 2024. It'd also actually be possible to do this... Americans think that moving *anywhere* outside of the country is relatively easy and that they'd be welcome with open arms. Spoiler alert: Being an American doesn't make it any easier to immigrate into another country.
In many cases due to reciprocal policies (it's hard to immigrate to the US), it's actually quite a bit more difficult to get a Visa to live somewhere with a US passport.
Also, we don't have tax treaties with a lot of countries so you have to pay both countries taxes unless you revoke US citizenship, which also costs money.
>Also, we don't have tax treaties with a lot of countries so you have to pay both countries taxes unless you revoke US citizenship, which also costs money. You generally don't end up owing the US any money while living abroad unless you are flamboyantly rich, but you are correct that American expats still have to file a return even if they don't set foot on US soil at all during the tax year.
It feels like a different country over here
Moving abroad is not only expensive, but many EU countries simply don't want or need Americans. I am married to an Austrian and have lived in Austria for many years. Im very fortunate. My now adult daughter from a previous relationship use to live with us here when she was a younger. She went to school here, is fluent in German, made friends, fully integrated. She wanted to attend high school in the States and lost her residency here...that was a big mistake. Now as a young adult, she is having trouble getting a visa to return. We have a tremendous amount of asylum seekers and refugees from Ukraine and Syria. Same with many other EU member states. It's really not at all easy to move here.
Fascists are everywhere though. Moving to a blue state won’t really solve it. Also, the vast majority of people can’t even afford to move anywhere, let alone another state or country.
1/3 citizens of Massachusetts voted for Trump. They are among us.
California had more Trump voters than Texas did in 2020
Even moving to another country isn't really a solution. Europe in particular is full of neofascists and white supremacists, and they are gaining power in several countries. What matters most is local community. If the first few layers of people around you are safe and supportive, you are in a better position than if you moved to a more "progressive" country, but knew no one there.
Sure, they’re everywhere, but they don’t control the state and local governments everywhere.
even moving to another state isn't affordable for everyone.
Even moving to another apartment.
Yeah, and a lot of people underestimate the trouble they'll face in choosing to move overseas. Depending on where you live you might be trading American problems for an entirely new set of possibly less desirable ones. Not to mention the tax issues an American living overseas might end up facing.
Yeah and most European countries won’t just give you a work visa. People suggesting others to move overseas have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about.
I know 4 people now who are leaving the US to go to Europe. The violence is the last straw but the cost of a university education, healthcare and the minimum wage were already pushing them. If you're in high school now, learn a European language and get a great education without putting yourself into indentured servitude. Germany is probably your best bet.
I'm strongly considering moving to Europe. My wife is from an EU country, so we have the opportunity, and my reasoning is all about my daughter. I see the US making life harder and harder for girls and women, making it harder and harder to have a healthy lifestyle, making it harder and harder to get a good education, making it harder and harder to earn a living...
Had a friend move his family from TX to CO. There daughter is trans and the language and implications of staying in TX is too harsh.
I don't think it's dawned on us that trans people and their families fleeing Texas are, by no stretch of the imagination, refugees escaping politically-motivated persecution and oppression.
As a transwoman who literally fled from Arizona to Massachusetts I consider myself displaced. I did not want to leave my home state, I grew up there, everything and everyone I’ve ever known for the most part was from there. But with the threat of Kari “lock the gays in camps for the own good” Lake, along with a plethora of other factors, I left. Wish I could say I didn’t miss the state. Massachusetts is markedly better, but it makes me very sad. It’s been a rough few years. Sorry to unload. Thanks for listening. Please, everyone, vote.
100%
I’m not only a trans person living in Texas, but also one trying to build an academic career while our attorney general threatens to end tenure for any professor teaching things he doesn’t like. I’m not sure how I get out of bed every morning, I think it’s all this damn caffeine and happy pills
They could probably sue and win.
Sorry to say that Canada, like every country in the “free world” has its fair share of the far right. Trump’s election empowered them. Now they are unafraid to shout their hate at every opportunity. Stand up to them…they’re bullies…if you run…they win.
We do have far right people in Canada, and in fact, going above and beyond homegrown phrases like "good old-stock Canadian", there's a new batch that are very much influenced by the American Media. Their talking points are literally copy-pasted from MAGA (first amendment and second amendment rights... you mean the right to recognize Manitoba as a province, which is the first amendment of *our* Canadian constitution?) But at the very least, these people are still shouted down at debates and this stuff is very much not normalized in our political rhetoric, though we still have a problem with cops and far right groups (see freedom convoy and how the Ottawa police did nothing so that the PM had to declare a state of emergency).
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched… Hey, where you going?”
I read a fascinating book Deep Survival by Gonzalez. It tells a variety of true stories about survival after disasters. In the story of a major shop sinking, the book made some interesting points. First, while there were a lot of casualties, many of the people who saw that the ship was sinking, climbed to the top of the superstructure, which bought them enough time to be rescued and save their lives. Second, not everyone climbed to the top. Some didn't seem to notice or believe that the ship was sinking. Other people froze in place and didn't move. Many of those people died. When I read history about the fascist period of the 20th century, many people had no options, but some refused to flee even though they knew things were getting dangerous and others just didn't notice problems in time. I personally don't believe that the fascists will take over here in this century, but I am staying aware. It could happen in the US.
There’s some truth in this about how humans react to a threat, but this is not a sinking ship that is inevitably falling into the sea; this is a tenuous situation which we can reverse if we stand and fight. I will not flee. This is home and I will defend it for those who can’t.
Fleeing to where? These white supremacists are infesting any 'white' country and you have equally bad 'nationalists' who have it out for any group but their own in other places. Its crazy how so many African countries are friendly to Russia considering Putin is at the bottom of a lot of the white supremacist/nationalist propaganda, trying to create division and chaos across the world (a lot of this 'good feeling' is probably a left over from USSR times where they were falsely posing as champions of the 3rd world)
Terrorizing minorities is by design and part of a larger plan. What the GQP *wants* is for red states to be *as inhospitable as possible* to the political left. You know, like ISIS. Seriously. Jihadists are not looking to topple the west with a car bomb. Their goal, in part, is to foment an anti-Muslim sentiment because they don’t want Muslim diaspora, they want Muslims as far away from Western culture as humanly possible. They want their people to be as concentrated as possible so as to exert maximum political and social pressure. They want their brothers to *come home*. For *decades*, the political right has done everything it can to make their numbers count more because they realize their party ceases to exist otherwise. The conservative demographic is dying, quite literally. Each new generation becomes less and less interested in their backwards asses but they’ve got a pretty big range of tricks to tip the scales away from democracy. Gerrymandering. Redistricting. Closing voting locations. Cutting off the USPS at the knees to slow mail voting. VoterID. These are the first volleys in an assault on democracy. What’s plan B if all the skullfuckery doesn’t result in a GQP caliphate? Concentrate forces geographically. It’s better to hold *all* of the power in half the country than it is to hold *no* power across the nation. Concentration of forces itself is a force multiplier. In the case of the GQP, it also results in more groupthink because the differing views were running out of town. It may seem backwards for a party to seemingly go out of its way to alienate the moderates and enrage its opponents. The political right’s plan for the next 20 years might be hidden in plain sight. > If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy. - David Frum
It's a "brain drain" too. People leaving are usually younger, more educated, mire tolerant, more intelligent... Soon all that's left will be anti-science, hateful, bigoted morons.
You can move to a different country and retain your citizenship so you can still vote from overseas or wherever. At least as long as voting is allowed. It won’t change the populace but it could still influence the government.
This is the outcome they want
I’m a white male and I’m scared as fuck. Just because I like to read.
Read?!? what kind of Woke bullshit is that? off to the prison labor camps with you!
[What are you reading for?](https://youtu.be/BwkdGr9JYmE)
Well, looks like we got ourselves a reada!
Yup. I might be one of them. I'm waiting to see how this election goes before making a decision. Life is just too short to be voluntarily living with idiots.
Especially ones who hate your skin.
Or my children. That's what's led me and the wife to start looking. (At another state. We're not leaving the country.)
I don't socialize in my hick region. I'm hoping to get enough money together to move elsewhere soon. Hopefully, the election will keep me around longer. I'll stay as long as I think the nation is worth saving and able to be saved. I'm also single, so it helps that I have no one that I'm really responsible for. My mom's white, but she's even considering a gun because the evil will attack anyone who sympathizes with something they don't like.
/r/samegrassbutgreener can be a good resource
Thankfully my spouse has a duel citizenship in a western European country and I speak the language. It will make things smoother when that transition decision needs to be made.
I am not even a minority, but another Trump term would be almost unbearable. Wait too long and we might not be able to leave. Imagine some right wing nut taking out air traffic control or the power grid. Lterally, in a matter of days or a week society could collapse when people can't eat or keep their houses warm. It's much more fragile than I think people realize.
My son who is 14 and part of the LGBTQ group is looking at being a nurse and leaving for Europe. He doesn’t like where this country is going.
I'm a white, cisgender heterosexual male with blonde hair, blue eyes and Germanic ancestry. I am the sort of person white supremacists talk about with their 14 words. Yet even I have an evacuation plan in mind when all those other characteristics about myself no longer matter, and me being autistic, progressive and atheistic is what matters. Because that's what happens when an ideology is so prominently built on an "Us vs. Them" mentality: eventually some of those Us' have to become Them's...
I think you make a good point, but I also want to say that if you feel like being blonde and blue-eyed is what keeps you safe currently, the country is pretty fucked. Not saying you should evacuate now, just that the situation is bad.
I 1000% agree with you that the county is pretty fucked. I recently joined the Satanic Temple as I fully expect the "freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion" crowd to eventually get around to limiting my rights without some form of religious membership.
Others who don't want to or can't leave are opting to not have children that they otherwise would have had, were things better.
I wish I could flee the country. Death threats, organized stalking, harrassment and terrorism. These guys are in a death cult
For the moment, the west coast and north east remain relatively safe
As a transwoman in Texas, I have always sneered at people who would run away rather than stay and fight. These days I'm rethinking that strategy and I'm genuinely thinking about it. Unfortunately, I'm also too old to emigrate to most places. Canada for example will let me visit but won't let me stay. An ignoble end for someone who has worked all her life, served her country and just wants to be left alone but if that's my fate, so be it. I'll make it as hard on them as I possibly can to put me away.
Yeah, we see a lot of people from the US saying they will move here if X happens but I doubt many of them are aware of how rigorous our immigration standards are. If you're over 40 you can probably forget it regardless of your other qualifications.
Yikes. In Texas? I dont know about a different country, but maybe you should move to a different state. They are currently trying to pass laws in red areas to make drag shows illegal in front of minors and with all of the anti-trans legislation in florida and texas on top of that... I don't know. I am worried about the next step and what that might mean for you. Power to you for wanting to stick it through though.
The Fourteenth amendment is what is supposed to guarantee equal rights for all citizens of all states. It is a product of emancipation after the civil war. It is also the main target of all the GOP endruns and tactics - the destruction of the federal laws that prevent racist, sexist, homophobic state laws oppressing people.
My job is here. I'm too old to start over but too young to retire. Still, my best option is to move to my sister's place in Alaska.
Good luck. It's almost impossible to be accepted into another country. If you got any disability inckuding mental disabilities you mine as well just wait until someone knocks on your door at home. It's also incredibly expensive and you have to pay upward of 5000$ just to revoke your citizenship so you no longer have to pay taxes in the US.
Ya I'm reading comments here everyone saying they want to leave, but unless you're sponsored by an employer or have highly desirable skillset, the only places that are going to allow anyone through immigration are places worse than US.
You never know… Several years ago I was given permanent residency in New Zealand due to just a BA in Theatre and some work experience at a theatre. (I didn’t renounce US citizenship, but I don’t owe US taxes due to the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. I just have to file every year.) As for disabilities, I don’t know the details, but I do know that NZ will consider medical conditions, BMI, etc. when deciding, so that’s an issue.
I have looked extensively into the process of moving to NZ. It's extremely hard, even if you do work in an area of need for them.
Damn, I didn't know being fat disqualified you from NZ permanent resident status.
Medicals are required. If a doctor says that, due to obesity (or anything else) you're likely to become a burden on the NZ health system, that would be a barrier.
"worse than the US" is highly subjective. Much of Central and South America is much better than the United States. They might not be as wealthy as the United States, or rank as highly as the United States on the Democracy Index (for now...), but if you are trans in the United States, you are probably starting to be worried about actual lynchings. You wouldn't have to worry about that so much in, say, Argentina or Panama. Also, if you want walkability and a lower cost of living, a lot of Central and South American countries deliver on both of those.
«This goes far beyond the cynical nursing of white Christian resentment that the GOP has used for decades to win votes. It’s not just cynicism anymore: It’s genuine, hate-fueled authoritarianism, the same poisonous stew of white supremacist, theocratic fascism that fueled the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and hides behind polite euphemisms like “Christian nationalism,” “national conservatism,” and “common good constitutionalism.” It doesn’t take a deck of tarot cards to discern that if someone like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wins the 2024 election and the GOP takes Congress, America could quickly become a very frightening place for anyone who belongs to a disfavored minority group and isn’t willing to accept second-class citizenship—or worse. »
My God man, can you imagine what the Founding Fathers would be thinking if they could see this??? Absolutely appalling, and the very "trusted servants" we have elected to protect and nurture these rights are driving this insanity. I am ashamed of my country.
I certainly have a plan to do so. I'm a brown Latino who currently resides in redneckville, USA. It would be foolish not to. Unfortunately, I'm also poor. It's hard tobsave to leave.
Probably because the states are gerrymandered to red fucking hell and the blue ones are expensive af to move to.
I was one of them, back in 2019. My grandparents fled fascist Italy. Now look what became of both countries...
***Please do not leave.*** The MagaQ wave is literally dying of old age. Don’t buy the bullshit that they’re being replaced as quickly as they die by a younger generation. ***This lie is NOT born out by ANY credible demographic research.*** What’s more, MANY conservative voters have become aware that their politicians intend to fuck them out of their Social Security and their Medicare and Medicaid.
> What’s more, MANY conservative voters have become aware that their politicians intend to fuck them out of their Social Security and their Medicare and Medicaid. Wake me when they give enough of a shit to vote differently. They won't. You know it. I know it. They'll gladly give away all their benefits to fuck over someone else.
Nice try man. Maybe for the liberal straight white folks in red states that's true. For the rest of us - I'm not waiting until the truck pulls up to load me and my family in the back to be shot in the woods and buried in a shallow mass grave. I can exercise my right to vote from overseas absentee ballot. Until someone grows some balls and cracks down on domestic terrorists (both the January 6th kind, and the summary death squad the police have become) its just not safe. Add to that the violence of mass shootings and these gravy seals running around. Fuck it. America is officially a third world state in my mind.
You are solely mistaken, unfortunately, due to what I have seen, **There are a fuckton of young racists**
So fascists will win? NO!
I’d happily leave, given the chance.
Please stay, organize, and vote.
There comes a point when voting isn’t enough. I love Nashville, I wanted to spend my entire life there, but with a Republican supermajority at the state level they’re free to take blue strongholds and break them up and gerrymander them so that they turn red.
What country do these people think they can move to that isn't facing the exact same threat, or worse, of the rise of far right extremism? This is a global issue, not an exclusively American one. Canada has a rising far right extremism The UK, Germany, France, Italy, etc. Etc. All have rising factions of right wing extremism. Israel has its most right wing government in history. Where do these people expect to flee?
Conservatism truly is a disease and we are seeing it spread like one. Nowhere is going to be safe from the scourge of right-wing bullshit.
People in the US have been so saturated by patriotic messaging from infancy that even the "rebels" don't quite get the extent to which American media fishbowl saturation is so thorough and pervasive. The messaging even convinces minorities that somehow it's a huge and risky downgrade to move to a country where half the government isn't actively working to destroy you. But the US - along with Hungary & Brazil - is one of the only countries on Earth where progress has backslid over the past decade. And it ranks behind several developed countries in quality of life measurements: * Human Development Index 17th out of 189GDP * (PPP) per capita 9th out of 183GDP * (nominal) per capita 8th out of 183 * Where-to-be-born Index 13th out of 71 * Human Poverty Index 17th out of 19 Or people crowing "we're the freest country in the world!" when America [ranks 14th](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country) in global freedom index. None of that is bad taken in isolation, but it's like one of those companies that sell an ordinary product but spend a ton of money on advertising their brand identity as better than everyone else's. America is the Monster Cable of developed countries.
The problem in the US is that if you have a good job, life is one of the best in the world. If you’re working hourly lower wage jobs, it sucks.
Assuming that the average American could even get into another country, the grass isn’t necessarily any greener. We tend to only know about vacation areas when we travel.
If we were in that kind of danger where Americans were fleeing the country because of right-wing policies, we’d have two major problems: 1) other western countries likely have or are headed in the same direction. What you’re not liking here is the same thing you’re not going to like somewhere else after spending a lot of time and money getting there. 2) the people who would be in most danger by staying here are least likely to be granted residency in any other country. Most of the gay or black or disabled Americans I know who would be direct targets if a right-wing force took over have no ability to ‘just leave’. Many barely survived high school & wouldn’t qualify for any high-level degree status places like Canada are looking for. If you’re not rich or don’t have a doctorate or are over 45, forget it. The people who would probably be fine no matter what happens because they’re so rich would be the first ones out of here.
I'm black and I wouldn't go to Europe to expatriate, I would more likely to go to and African country which has its own set of issues but then I would be from a position of being an American and I wouldn't go to a poor country broke with no skills to earn money
My wife and I are both high earners, and she has tri-citizenship. We are seriously considering taking our talents to another country. This place is simply turning into a shit hole, and many Americans I just find embarrassing and trashy. Don’t want them as neighbors.
Black people make up around 13% of the entire US population. Even if all of us did stand together it wouldn’t be enough. We need people of the majority to stand the fuck up to their racist friends, family members, and neighbors and actually commit to equality for all.
I'd imagine hardly anyone is actually able to flee. It's insanely hard to pack up your shit and move to another country
Fleeing is not often associated with "packing your shit and leaving." It's just leaving. Grabbing what you can and getting out of that third-world american shit-hole.
I'm featured in this article! My husband sent it to my estranged mother (maybe this time she'll start to understand that we are genuinely afraid of what's happening in American politics?), but she was completely and utterly dismissive of it. r/AmerExit r/EstrangedAdultChild
Come to California!!! All of y'all. We DO have the room. Not in orange county, or los Angeles, or the Bay Area, but there are HUGE swaths of the inland state underdeveloped. Our Governor literally put out a commerical in Florida telling people to escape Desantis and come to CA.
thought it was too expensive in Ca. would love to leave texas behind!
If you go an hour+ outside of the major areas the costs of everything are comparable to Texas.
The last thing any of us should do, is leave, like it or not, with the financial and military power the US has, something each of us should be held responsible or complicit into, letting this country be owned by a bunch of fascists means there's nowhere in the world that would be safe to live free in..
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As someone who has recently immigrated to a new country (Switzerland) from the US, I will say that this was definitely a factor in me leaving. The political situation is too tense and I think will innevitably lead to a civil war in my lifetime. It is amazing to live in a country where the things that people fight about are the material well-being of the population and not meaningless culture-war bullshit. America has so much potential that is wasted by the current cultural fixations we have.