I’d been considering moving back to Taiwan permanently or semi-permanently for about two years now. That plan was the idea regardless of whether Biden or Trump won, but a Trump win might nudge me slightly further along that choice.
The problem is a lack of $$$. That factor is independent of D’s or R’s.
OK, sorry I misunderstood the narrow focus you were intending. But still, the world going to shit is surely going to have direct personal effects on a very large number of people, and many of those effects are not even predictable because the orange America-hating fuckstick himself is neither predictable nor rational. Higher prices? Supply shortages due to global turmoil? Unconstrained spread of disease? Increased impacts of climate change?
OK, I’ll leave you to discuss the thread on your own terms, but I’m just saying that there’s a big fuzzy area between “personal impacts” and “global impacts”.
^^^This right here.
This will be bad for everyone, regardless of where you live in the US. It will be bad in blue states and red states. It will be bad for our neighbors in Canada, too.
Trump & his band of Red Hatted Fascists are coming after their political enemies. And it will result in a loss of freedom and democracy in the US. Women have already lost reproductive rights all over different parts of America, due to this man. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
And Eastern/Central Europe had better brace for war, too. Once Trump pulls out of NATO - which I predict he will do - Putin will have a free hand in Europe.
I’m worried about having a leader who openly wants to work with Putin. And I’m very worried about what he’ll do to democracy, through the platform the role gives him as well as whatever he manages to get through in executive orders (I’m sure a lot of what he tries won’t go through, just as it was the last time). He may also cripple the government’s ability to function, from the executive side at any rate, by intentionally putting incompetent people in charge and firing anyone who isn’t openly MAGA.
I know he did a bit of that before, but I feel like the gloves will be off now.
How much of that will personally affect me? I don’t know. I have a young daughter still in school, and I wonder how much of his presidential malpractice will filter down.
I’m more worried about the race for governor in my state, since I am employee of the executive branch. That can very much affect me directly. The POTUS, probably not nearly as much.
I don’t think living in a super-blue state will protect your civil rights against the MAGA fascists. If they put a bullseye on someone or something in your state, good luck!
In general (IMHO), the fixation on the President is largely misplaced. For things that most people care about, the important issues are local - school lunches, infrastructure, government programs, etc. The President runs the military, the CIA, the diplomatic squadron, and the post office. Outside of that last, he basically doesn’t have any responsibility that would intersect with the average American, living inside the United States. And, heck, the post office is largely operated as an independent, self-managing organization.
Personally, I care about the global scene. I’ve traveled extensively, I care about the quality of life of humanity across the planet. In terms of the US Federal government, I want them to be doing good and productive things in the international space. But, factually, the impact of the President’s choices affect the average Israeli and Palestinian, the average Ukrainian, the average Nigerien, etc. far more than it affects the average American.
In terms of Trump himself, however, the above sort of goes out the window. Most principally, Trump’s policies are pro-inflationary. Tariffs are, in an economic sense, equivalent to self-imposed sanctions and he’s big on those. While, granted, a large part of our current inflation is from fallout related to the Ukraine war and the pandemic, Trump’s tariffs are also in there and we would expect him to add more.
Past that, his intent to continue standing the US down from trying to keep the world a safe and stable place would further continue to cause such issues as Ukraine, Israel, Niger, etc. to break out. If Taiwan goes, the high tech industry would take a massive hit.
The other issue is the question of whether Trump would leave office. If he doesn’t then how do the states respond? Do they let it slide, do they break off, does Newsom declare war on DC? There’s no good that comes from that path and the fact that Trump would even joke about such things as being President for life are, effectively, as concerning as the principal of your kid’s new school joking about taking erotic nudes of the students.
Even if it’s a joke, you should know to the depth of your soul: You can’t trust this guy in this position.
It would mean no newspapers or TV national news for four years. And some fervent prayers for him to get hit by a truck.
Of all the places I could see as viable for fleeing a Trump presidency, Taiwan is not one of them.
There aren’t many alternatives. Jon Stewart has suggested New Zealand, but if that’s not good enough, then, failing the ability to get off the planet, an outpost at the South Pole might work.
Well, yeah. We live in a unipolar world, with the US - a country that, for all its flaws, is at least somewhat dedicated to human rights and democratic values - at the helm.
Trump threatens to both change the US’ character, and to have it pull back from its role as the leading global hegemon. That’s going to impact every part of the planet. China, Russia, and the EU are going to scramble to fill that power vacuum.
In a hypothetical world where the US decides that it’s cool if dictators conquer their neighbors, without the protection of the US Navy, a place like New Zealand seems like easy prey for an ascendant Chinese Empire.
Yes, but it’s the only other place I’d have dual citizenship.
I’m just saying, it would suck to trade Trump for Xi.
I will, personally, have almost no negative consequences as far as my day-to-day life goes.
It is the broader sense of living in the country with Trump in charge that will be worse.
I’m a cishet White male, atheist but ostensibly Christian. I retired from the federal government four years ago. I live in a paid-off house in a blue state suburb. Childless bachelor.
The worst case scenarios for me (gutting Social Security, gutting my FERS pension) are IMO pretty unlikely, but I could see smaller measures, like ending COLAs.
I think Social Security is safer than federal pensions, because more voters are depending on it, or expect to be. And Republicans have long railed against federal workers, and would love to hit us in the pocketbook. But as I said, I think completely ending either is unlikely.
I have saved aggressively and invested shrewdly, so I could live on just my savings.
So overall, I myself am pretty safe. Some friends and relatives, less so.
I’ll refrain from commenting on how the country would fare, except to say I think it would be a disaster.
I’m a married white dude in Red America. I am a Christian and I attend Church faithfully. I am still employed, with one child that’s now working in the real world while my other child is still in college. I think a Trump election will likely hit me in the pocketbook, because I think it will be bad for markets and my investments. His tariffs will drive up my cost of living. And he will make it harder for me to afford health insurance if I retire before 65 (by gutting the ACA’s subsidies).
On top of that, my daughter has lost reproductive rights, and I’m living in a very Trumpy area where it’s harder to speak to people about politics openly. I think my rights will be under attack.
I might need to look for a Plan B country somewhere else.
Or maybe move to New England? There’s red patches in the blue, of course, and housing is ridiculously costly in a number of areas, but over all I’m glad, as a white woman in my 70s, to be living in Massachusetts. If Trump and henchmen take a hatchet to Medicare and Social Security I’d be screwed, but that would likely require legislation that I think even GOP congresscritters would hesitate to abolish.
I know the noises he is making are worse now. I know if his fantasies come true it will be bad. I just don’t think he’s competent enough to do a lot of damage. I have four years of a presidency to cite. The worst aspect will continue to be who he puts on the Supreme Court. That has already happened. A second presidency will just mean it will go on longer. Secondly It will be how his foreign policy affects the world in the near term, specifically with regard to Putin. Domestically he will be largely ineffective. For the vast majority if you turn off the news you won’t find anything different.
Yeah, there are lots of blue areas in the US. This isn’t a red country.
And side benefit, I’m sure it’s a total coincidence but the blue parts of the country are nice places to live.
Just slightly better than Ukraine.
Personally it wouldn’t be “bad” for me, but he’d do a lot of things I don’t like. But Biden will do that, too. Since everyone says vote for your interest, I’ll vote for a third party, even though they won’t win.
I’m not worried about fascism because that’s just a bunch of Trump haters spouting something that won’t really happen.
I’m not worried about the other folks taking away our guns, because that’s not something that’s going to happen either.
They’re both going to depreciate the value of my savings and steal from me via inflation. While I think that LGBT folks have their rights, and while second amendment folks have their rights, the value of my money is more important to me than any of your stupid little petty special interests. Obviously those are facile examples, but they make a point.