Good point.
It’s worthwhile to reflect that Trump Admin One was such an unrelenting firehose of awfulness and cruelty that it’s almost impossible to remember everything that happened.
Honest question: Does it have to get that far before you consider it to be a problem?
Rome wasn’t burnt in a day.
Concentration camps were limited to immigrants last time, and I expect the same next time, at higher intensity:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-plans-sweeping-undocumented-immigrant-roundups-detention-camps-report-2023-11-11/
The question is whether we’ll have a free and fair election in 2028, by international standards. That’s my worst case for the moment. For decades I read about democracies dying and being revived in middle income countries in the Economist magazine. I didn’t think that the US would face similar issues: I thought democracy was baked in. I was wrong. Meh, I guess I’ll throw in a quote from Tom Nichols:
In the Before Times, we still argued over politics instead of whether communist Muslims had taken over our Venezuelan voting machines with help from the Italian space program. I felt like it was safe to throw elbows and do some partisan high-sticking; I believed that we were all in a giant bouncy house called the Constitution, a place where we might bump skulls or sprain an ankle now and then but where there were no sharp edges and there were only soft landings.
I don’t believe that anymore.
Hit the streets for every demonstration I can get to. Send money to ACLU (as usual). Write venomous letters and emails. Post rabid polemics on social media. Engage in any useful civil disobedience. Bitch and howl.
Do not go gentle into that good night…
Same here, or maybe Spain. I have started doing the research (I am a contingency planner by nature) and we have enough savings to qualify for long-term residence visas, and eventually permanent residence, in either place. We might be able to do Portugal if we can figure out a way to turn assets into passive income that makes sense both for visa qualification purposes and for long-term financial planning purposes. Sorting out moving logistics, tax planning, etc. would take some work but I am sure we could figure it out if we needed to.
I am dead serious. I literally don’t know if I would survive another Trump administration in my line of work (immigration law). I don’t want to have to take SS until I am 70 (people in my family tend to live until their late 80s to late 90s), but if it means saving my sanity, I might just do it - the lower cost of living elsewhere might make it feasible.
(I need to get back on that Canadian citizenship by descent application, too…although it seems that the economy isn’t doing so great up there, either, and it might not make sense to move there. But if I qualify, I am definitely in favor of having another citizenship in my back pocket. That’s one reason I might consider Portugal instead of Spain; Spain doesn’t allow dual citizenship in most cases, but Portugal does.)
All else being equal, I would chose Spain - I majored in Spanish and have been speaking it for more than 4 decades - but when is all else actually equal?
At least in Canada, social security for ex-pats is guaranteed by treaty. I have fewer than 40 quarters (that’s what I get for spending 4 years working at the University of Illinois) but still get a small social security as a result of a treaty. Though I guess Trump could abrogate that treaty.
Yep, that’s currently true of anywhere I might be interested in moving. Part of my hesitation is long-term financial planning; sure, we can probably afford to coast on our savings in Mexico or Spain until we take SS, but what if something happens and we want to move back? I am 55 now so I won’t be eligible for SS for a while, so I want to hedge my bets. And the visas we are reasonably going to be able to qualify for don’t allow working.
It depends, but although the two countries’ immigration systems are quite different, the reality generally is the opposite of that. Canada uses a merit-based points system to evaluate applicants, and someone with strong marketable skills and solid academic qualifications has a good shot at being admitted. Canada is also much more welcoming to refugees than the US. Overall, on a per-capita basis Canada admits more immigrants annually than any other country in the world.
In the US, OTOH, unless you’re one of the very lucky few asylum seekers who get admitted, or are transferred to the US by a multinational employer with an established US presence, the only way to get admitted is if you fall into one of a small number of special categories, generally involving extraordinary skills or fame and wealth. As someone once said with perhaps just a touch of hyperbole, for the average ordinary Joe getting admitted to the US for permanent residence is practically impossible. The only realistic pathway is generally to be sponsored by an employer willing to go to bat for you and argue for your uniquely valuable skills, but it’s usually a heavy lift.
Personally, I think if fear and loathing of the Orange Menace drives well-qualified educated Americans to Canada, I’d be the first to put out the welcome mat. 
I for one expect my heart or liver to give out before the end of a prospective second term. Although Costa Rica or Portugal are not out of the question. I am also relatively heavily armed (not really, in the case of Civil War 2–Electric Boogaloo) and I’m already very pissed off and depressed about the state of our country.
What will I do? Same as last time. Grind my teeth daily, remind myself that the federal government doesn’t govern the entire country (or even itself very well), and remember that similar things (and worse) are happening in most of the countries that I’d consider moving to. Rend the hair-shirt, take a deep breath, vote, and get on with my life.
That’s what I like to think anyway. It could get worse than that, and in fact things might never be normal again. But I can’t change it by worrying over it (tried it last time).
I’m just a nice lady who promises not to make any trouble… 
Husband might be an issue, should I kill him?
… who may or may not be knitting to pass the time?
Sorry, I deal with immigration to Canada, not the US. Perhaps I misunderstood you. If you wish to come to Canada, this is the advice I give to all prospective immigrants/refugees from the US:
When come to Canada, bring pie. Enjoy our free health care, sane politics, and abundance of cannabis products and moose. Please leave your politics and your guns at home.
Will do! 
Um . . . I’m trying to be on the side that’s not in favor of murdering people.
(Hi, penultima!)
My concern too. Think Rwanda, 7 April to 15 July 1994.
It’s pretty straightforward to figure out in many cases. I’ve been looking into it myself (because I am not one of those cases). Why don’t you apply? Only $75 CDN to file.
This is good, proper and indeed expected … but if spilling just a bit of claret was deemed to be necessary/essential for the greater cause, you’d be in the front row knitting? 
I think that’s what the MAGA’s expect to be doing.