I don’t know. It is clear the political situation here will continue to degenerate. There is not going to be rapprochement between white supremacists who see their privileged status slipping away, and the rest of us. It has from the beginning of colonization been the defining ugliness of the US, and I think this second coming of civil war is going to be fought over essentially the same ground. In my very blue state we will be buffered but the destruction of really everything good about the US seems inevitable now.
I would not mind at all moving to Canada, ideally its eastern coast. It’s only a half day’s drive from me. But I am not at all certain it would be possible to emigrate as retirees, even with plenty of savings. I am sure Canada will be closing up tighter and tighter as the US falls apart.
A future Administration follows California’s lead and bans barbecue as a “probable carcinogen”, only permitting plant-based brisket when lightly steamed.
I really feel like Canada needs to start advertising that refugee camps in Mexico would be far preferable to a refugee camp in Canada during a Canadian winter.
In an ironic dystopian future where Americans are fleeing south, the headline: “Mexico’s new democratically elected President boasts ‘See! We got that wall built, and got the gringos to pay for it!’.”
I hear hiring an undocumented American refugee is pretty cheap, but you have to watch them closely, or they’ll start lounging around by the pool demanding you bring them drinks.
Something would have to happen that involved flowing lava in the streets and zombies. Some people have fantasies about easy immigration in other countries but I know different. Any country I would want to live in would make it very difficult for me to get there. I’m too old to start again with no money and I rely on two government pensions to get by so I’m betting on no government collapse.
I also don’t believe the sky is falling and I like living here.
I looked into it when Trump won the election. There are no English-speaking countries that want me, and I don’t speak any other languages.
A good friend is working on emigrating to Portugal. But he speaks Italian fluently, and can get by in French and Spanish, so he’ll be able to pick up Portuguese. I’m not good with languages, and I have a lot tying me to where I am now.
I think I could emigrate to Slovakia due to my heritage and their rules. My family could come with me. But I’ve been keeping an eye on Slovakia and their culture and government and to be honest it doesn’t seem too appealing. Plus, all the hills…I’m too fat for all those hills, man. Oh yeah and there’s no way I’m learning the Slovak language. They have extra letters and stuff!
I’d leave Ohio, US and move to Bernieland, US if there’s ever a split. I’d do that in a heartbeat, because I know my similarly-thinking people would come with me.
Otherwise, being that nowhere else would have me, I guess I’ll just stay here and watch it burn down around me.
It’s a joke, son. But not a far-fetched prospect, given that California has already warned that coffee, french fries, wood furniture, Tiffany lamps, pumpkin puree and a host of other things can give you cancer.
If DumbDonald is elected again, Mrs. Watering and I are off to Ireland. She has dual EU citizenship, and I think I can get it, too. I’ve never looked real hard at that.
Costa Rica is pretty attractive and, while speaking Spanish, has a large ex-pat community of retirees and students. You have to have a minimum income (or a job) to live there as an alien but my social security easily meets that, never mind the other income streams.
A nice opportunity to live somewhere else. That’s all it would take. I lived abroad from 1998-2003 right after I graduated college. I would do it again. I’m not particularly tied to the US, and wouldn’t mind living elsewhere for an extended period of time should the financial situation be reasonable. My wife is also amenable to working/living abroad and has a job that does not need to be tied to geography. If somebody came up to me and said, “hey, here’s a couple million bucks, go live in Hamburg or Ljubljana or whatnot for a few years,” I’d do it.
I have the complexion of a vampire and no tolerance for heat. I don’t care what the advertising is, clearly I’m a cold-adapted human (yes, I know - with climate change I’m kind of screwed).
My wife and I have talked about retiring to another country where our retirement savings will stretch further. I feel like this country is not too kind to older people on fixed incomes. And with Social Security and Medicare always under threat it could be even worse here by the time we do retire.
I even started a thread on the matter almost a year ago:
Me, too. Not that I’d want to sit outdoors in a Canadian winter, but I’d be really miserable in a Mexican summer, and they may not think that getting me out of the heat and sun was a matter of life and death. Canada probably doesn’t actually leave refugees outdoors in the winter.