We’re heading downhill faster and faster, away from democracy and toward oligarchy. If my employer was as corrupt as our leadership, I’d change jobs, I wouldn’t want to be a part of such a thing. But what about when it’s your country? Is it wrong to stay?
Staying in order to vote sounds good superficially, but I live in a very blue state and my votes in the presidential election are relatively worthless. I could move a few miles north to Pennsylvania which would make my vote pretty valuable, but if I were going to move for political reasons it’d be to get away from here. And yes, I always vote, though this year it’s going to seem like a pretty sad exercise.
Donating sounds good superficially, but with all the corporate and billionaire money on the other side, it’s starting to seem more and more just a waste of money. And yes, I have always donated (though this year it’s hard to muster the will to do so).
I’m just haunted by the idea that it’s wrong of decent people to stay.
One of the other ex British colonies, perhaps, or Scandinavia, or western Europe. But if noplace else would have me, then I don’t have an ethical dilemma anyway.
It’s a bit easier to change jobs than it is nationalities, and yet, people stay with the same company for decades past the time that they really should have left. Not having a job can be worse than having a bad job.
Same with countries. I’d rather live in a bad country than no country at all. You also, unlike in a company, actually have some input over the way the country is run. If you have an opportunity to go somewhere that you think you will like more, then go for it, but I wouldn’t go looking because you are disaffected by our political landscape.
Strategic moving for voting, OTOH, may be something we can get behind. Get a couple hundred thousand people to move to South Dakota for six months and a day, and we can get another senate seat, and three electoral votes.
If all the good people had bailed out the US during the bad times, then we’d still have slavery, child laborers, no enfranchisement for women, and no environmental regulations.
I’m not going to start thinking about migrating until bombs are literally fall down on me. Until then, I’m going to do whatever I can to be one of the “good people”. And I refuse to fall into despair.
What I’m struggling with is that I’m contributing to the economy. And I’m an unwitting accomplice in the whole system. I’m paying taxes that support the policies.
I belong to most of the privilege groups including all the important ones, with the exception that I’m not in the top fraction of a percent of wealth where political power is. Tactically, life is comfortable. So it’s not how I’m getting treated that’s the problem. It’s what’s being carried out on my behalf.
Kind of like discovering the club you belong to prevents entire categories of people from belonging.
“As goes the United States, so goes the world. Hunkering down in Canada – or even New Zealand – is not an option the way it might once have been. There is nowhere to hide from an unhinged America. There is no benevolent foreign power to step into the breach if America loses its way. Hope is not a strategy”
Opinion piece on CNN.com, from a Canadian who became a naturalized US citizen the day before yesterday.
"WASHINGTON—Confirming the challenges associated with preserving liberal democracy, the nation’s top political scientists issued a report Friday that found fighting against the rising tide of authoritarianism sounds like a ton of work. "
I once looked into going elsewhere. As it happens, no one else wants me. Well, they’d be happy for me to visit as a tourist and spend money, they just don’t want me to move in permanently.
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