I’m not going anywhere.
Back to @Ann_Hedonia quote
I happen to be listening to Tom Petty’s song. It just came on. “I won’t back down, I’ll stand my ground”
We have to be Ukraine in this. FIGHT. Fight in every election. Get out there and VOTE.
My wife has finally agreed that we can emigrate if Trump becomes president (we spent a lot of our professional lives outside of the US and I hate it here). We have a vacation already scheduled to our target country in January, we’ll know by then and if Trump is elected, we’ll spend some of our time looking at property. Then we’ll sell our houses in the US in the spring with a goal of leaving in the summer of 2025. We will probably rent at first.
My wife plans to spend some her time in the US stayin g with her aging parents, but if I leave, I hope to never return.
Do you mind if I ask which country?
I’m not going to say now right now because I don’t have the energy for the Dope nit picking of my choice (not by you, but I’ve been here a long time). If it happens, I might post about it when it gets closer. It’s a democracy with universal health care, a higher rating on both the freedom index and most development ratings. Needless to say, it has nowhere near America’s level of gun violence.
I was actually at the point that I told my wife that I was going and if she wasn’t, I was going to need half our resources. We had always planned to leave the US and then her parents moved close to us without any discussion. Since then I’ve been stuck here.
Fair enough, and I wish you luck however things turn out.
Thanks, sorry to be a crank, it’s been a long day.
I have applied for the second time for Canadian citizenship by descent (the first application was filed in November 2020) because a backup passport is generally not a bad thing to have, and after much research, I’ve determined it’s the only one I am eligible for (except Israel, about which…thanks, but no thanks). Other than that, I’ve researched countries where I would be eligible for a long-term visa and countries where I can afford to live on my current savings, and we are taking a recon trip to one of those countries in November. (Partly because we don’t want to be in the U.S. on Election Day, and partly because Tom_Scud’s birthday is the week of the election.)
Why? I live in a very blue city, but my job (immigration law) is Federally controlled, and let’s just say that a) no way in Hell am I spending a second Trump administration in that line of work for all sorts of reasons; b) I never in a million years thought I would have to talk about the United States as a place where there was a real risk of electoral violence; and c) both Tom_Scud and I don’t like what a second Trump administration would mean for the political future of the United States in all sorts of ways.
Thought this thread was worth bumping (although I understand that any answers now will be quite emotional).
Not from me. I’m just resigned to being a likely passive observer to a spreading shit show. Hopefully the bottom won’t completely fall out before I’m worm food. Meanwhile I’ll just dodder along in my semi-stable nearly retired/fully retired life here in the heart of my local midnight-blue bubble. There is nowhere for me to go that would be more congenial or practical - I don’t have kids to worry about and I just bought a place next to my elderly parents and am fairly well stuck.
I’m not looking forward to the next few years to put it mildly, but there is nothing to be done about it. So as much as humanly possible I’m going to try and skip the stomach-churning denial, anger, bargaining and depression and just settle into numb acceptance.
Well I have “The Rest is Politics” playing on the JBL speaker, (Rory Stewart looks like a guy contemplating swallowing his 2nd cup of razor blades), the bottle of Buffalo Trace is about half gone but I’m not yet laughing out loud. Maybe by the end of the bottle.
And make sure that President Vance isn’t re-elected in 2028.
How will you do that? A superior candidate with tons of cash vs and incompetent doddering one was not sufficient. If the policies of the next 4 years don’t cause some incredible harm to the folk who voted red this time, why won’t they vote for a younger more (ugh - I hate to say it) charismatic candidate in 4?
My girlfriend and I will be looking into immigration, most likely Canada, marriage may be in my future, depending on what we find out and how things shake out here in the States, now that the Orange Traitor has re-occupied the White House.
Well, my gf had something up her sleeve in the event of a bad outcome. So, the bright side of Tuesday’s horror is that she will be retiring this spring!
She has way more than enough in her retirement savings. Add to that a substantial inheritance from her aunt. She has spoken with a financial advisor and has all her ducks in a row.
Her plan, should Kamala win, was to continue working for the 4 years of her first term, doing her share to boost the economy.
But Tuesday turned sour, so on Wednesday she went to Pittsburgh and gave a 4 month notice, setting retirement wheels turning and fuck the economy.
Congratulations to her 
. I love seeing solvent people retiring.
I must admit I felt a strong urge to do the same yesterday, just as a bit of mental relaxation/reward. I’m going soon anyway so why not just pull the plug? Put in my papers and just vacation out for a couple of months. But…it’s not the smart move for me yet. We’re in the middle of our always lengthy contract negotiations and there is some pressure on both sides to adjust the medical retirement benefit in some way. So better to wait and see since it won’t be retroactive for current retirees. Worth slogging through another several months to see what’s what.
But I really want to.
Very reasonable!
I find that I’ve already speed-run all the stages of grief from 2016. I’m already in acceptance, already numb to it. I am not even going to try to digest the totality of it, just one day at a time.
Last time I tried to drink my way through it. It did not work, I do not recommend it at all, the emotional processing works infinitely better without alcohol. The initial phases are harder of course, my intestines have done things that I didn’t think was possible. But I’m holding up a lot better than I expected (I guess for now).
I do have a 2-year plan to leave the country if it really comes to that.
I wouldn’t mind hearing your plan, in particular, which country and why.
Apologies if there is already a thread for that but I haven’t see it if there is.
Well, one thing I’m doing is getting caught up on all vaccinations. I expect this will be one of the the things the coming administration will eliminate quickly. It’s already happening in some places, in fact.
(Gift link)
From the article:
An Idaho health department is no longer offering Covid-19 shots after its board voted last month to restrict the department from doing so, an unusual step driven largely by misinformation about the side effects and safety of the shots.
The ban will make it harder for some people to access Covid vaccines in the six-county region in southwestern Idaho, which include Adams, Canyon, Owyhee, Gem, Washington and Payette counties and covers over 300,000 residents. But doctors and public health officials also worry that the move will have a far broader effect, by giving credence to false claims about the vaccines and fueling further efforts across the nation to stop people from getting vaccinated.
I’ve got a few to catch up on, but will try to have them all done by the end of December. COVID is first.
Good call! I believe I’m up to date, but will be visiting the doctor next month, so I’ll double check.
To the OP, my wife and I are accelerating our plan to move to the EU. We’ve spent the past 5+ years getting her dual citizenship, and it came through a few months ago. We have been leisurely thinking about where to go and how to make it work with a rough “some time in the next 5 years” timeline, but now we’re upping our timeline to moving within the next year.