# Your Likelihood of Leaving the US if Donald Trump Is Elected POTUS **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 27, 2016, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264 "2016-02-27T01:44:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/21 "2016-02-27T04:03:02Z")
“I’ll leave the county if X is elected” is the mantra of morons. No, you won’t leave the country. You’'ll post annoying rants on Facebook, maybe send a strongly worded email to someone who won’t bother reading it, and if you’re really committed, you’ll attend a protest rally or twenty. But you won’t leave the country. Virtually no one does that over politics. I certainly won’t leave the country. I might, however, start doing stand up comedy and verbally skewering Trump, Hillary, or whoever draws my righteous wrath. Yay First Amendment! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/22 "2016-02-27T04:15:37Z")
I live in California. Even the President doesn’t have the power to trash California in one four-year term. If he’s re-elected, things could get scary. But, hell, we survived Bush the Younger. We’ll survive this, too. I’d feel very, very sorry for people who live in certain other parts of the country. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/23 "2016-02-27T04:41:33Z")
I oppose Trump, but his election would not make me want to leave my country. Not a chance. The U.S. survived the presidencies of Pierce, Buchanan, Harding, Grant, Nixon and Bush the Lesser. We can survive a President Trump. ---
**Author:** ![SpaceSissy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SpaceSissy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpaceSissy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/24 "2016-02-27T04:46:27Z")
I kid you not! Thank you Trump if I end up dying in a Hobbit Hole!!:eek: ---
**Author:** ![appleaday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@appleaday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleaday)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/25 "2016-02-27T04:48:14Z")
If Trump is elected, I would fall into a deep, but temporary depression. Then I’d perk up and carry on as usual. Leave the USA? Never. It’s my home. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/26 "2016-02-27T05:18:27Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > “I’ll leave the county if X is elected” is the mantra of morons. No, you won’t leave the country. You’'ll post annoying rants on Facebook, maybe send a strongly worded email to someone who won’t bother reading it, and if you’re really committed, you’ll attend a protest rally or twenty. But you won’t leave the country. Virtually no one does that over politics. > > I certainly won’t leave the country. I might, however, start doing stand up comedy and verbally skewering Trump, Hillary, or whoever draws my righteous wrath. Yay First Amendment! We actually did leave Quebec over politics after the separatists took power in 1977. But we were U.S. citizens so in a sense we were just returning home. Of course, the situation was different. The politics meant that if you were a uni-lingual English speaker, your career was suddenly kaput, and that’s why we had to leave. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/27 "2016-02-27T05:41:58Z")
> [@SpaceSissy](#): > > I kid you not! Thank you Trump if I end up dying in a Hobbit Hole!!:eek: NZ is actually very nice. You will do well there. I would consider going there irrespective of presidential politics. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/28 "2016-02-27T06:16:08Z")
Let’s see… Reagan, H.W. (mission accomplished), Dubya (what accomplished)… No, I wouldn’t leave. If Trumpy Wumpy is the winner, I’d email him and tell him to employ me somewhere (that’d probably last for less than a month like at Taj Mahal). However, if I ever win the lottery, contact me in Rekjavik, Iceland. The current or incumbent president matters none. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/29 "2016-02-27T06:25:34Z")
Liberals and conservatives talked all the time about leaving America if So-and-So were elected. I’d guesstimate that less than 1% actually did so. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/30 "2016-02-27T06:53:46Z")
Trump can go to hell. No way will I let that narcissistic demagogue run me out of my own country. Fuck him. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/31 "2016-02-27T10:29:51Z")
I’d be much more worried about Cruz or Rubio, actually. Rubio is the perfect Grover Norquist President: he’s a total lackey of the wealthy, and has enough fingers to sign whatever destructive shit a GOP Congress sends him. And Cruz, a raving theocrat and radical right-winger, would be actively malevolent. If it were just up to me, I’d actively consider Canada if one of those two got elected. But my wife, who grew up in Florida, is already about as far north as she is willing to deal with, so it ain’t happening. But Trump? Who the hell knows what would happen if he got elected? I wouldn’t pack my bags until I knew for certain that things here were going to go bad in a hurry, and I don’t know that with Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/32 "2016-02-27T13:28:02Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Trump can go to hell. No way will I let that narcissistic demagogue run me out of my own country. Fuck him. Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks! ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/33 "2016-02-27T13:53:13Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > I certainly won’t leave the country. I might, however, start doing stand up comedy and verbally skewering Trump, Hillary, or whoever draws my righteous wrath. Yay First Amendment! [Trump does have plans to address that.](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-weaken-libel-laws-amid-feuds-reporters-37239118) ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/34 "2016-02-27T14:56:42Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > “I’ll leave the county if X is elected” is the mantra of morons. No, you won’t leave the country. I imagine there are a lot of Syrians who felt the same way. GWB was a misguided conservative. Not a good president, but it wasn’t foreseeable that he would change the basic fabric of American life, and he didn’t. I would indeed have been stupid to say one was leaving the country over his presidency. A conservative leaving the country over Obama would be even sillier, considering that every country with a US-like level of development was further down the Obama path than the US would foreseeably get in eight years. Alec Baldwin and Rush Limbaugh were indeed foolish in their empty declarations. Trump is different. This is a guy without the fundamental restraint of practically every leader we’ve had in the US. He’s closer to a damn honey badger than he is to Richard Nixon. Leaving the US if Trump is elected may be akin to leaving the southern US when those states were threatening to secede–if you stay, you may be in for an absolute catastrophe. I hope I’m wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/35 "2016-02-27T15:32:27Z")
I’m not leaving, period. I took out a mortgage through my parents years ago and its part of an ongoing trust of their estate. Its fully filed and perfected as a ‘first mortgage’ now. When I die, the house goes to the estate trust… either for it to sell or for another family member to move in here. I’m in it for the long haul. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/36 "2016-02-27T18:15:27Z")
Trump is a jerk and a phony who would make a terrible President. But the reality is, I’m not going anywhere if he wins. At worst, somebody else will be President on January 20, 2025. We’ll survive. There’s only so much damage he can do. No matter what he says, there’s not going to be a wall across the border, there’s not going to be a 45% tariff on foreign goods, and he’s not even going to TRY to do half the things his followers hope. DISCLAIMER: I’ve already been absurdly wrong about Trump a dozen times in the past year. I never really thought he’d run, for starters, let alone that he’d do so well. So, take my opinion for what it’s worth (not much, apparently). ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/37 "2016-02-27T18:36:54Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > How likely are you to leave the United States if Donald Trump wins this thing? What, and become a victim of his foreign policy? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/38 "2016-02-27T19:09:14Z")
Where would I go? Europe? I hear they have, you know… socialists… over there. Seriously, I can’t stand Trump. I would take Bernie Sanders over Trump. Either way, a country like the US has numerous subsidiary governments, branches of government and bureaucrats. Nobody can push the US into a right-hand turn by himself. They key danger with Trump (and Sanders, too) is not that he wins, but that the demographics who support him will remain active like this for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/39 "2016-02-27T19:22:50Z")
I’m _ **Canadian** _ and I would consider my options of leaving Canada for somewhere else, possibly New Zealand, to escape if Trump became POTUS. We are hideously influenced by the American political climate here. What is the job market for nurses in New Zealand? I have friends in Christchurch. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264/40 "2016-02-27T19:57:08Z")
I’m too old and set in my ways to move out of the USA. But I’ve told my children I’d help them evacuate if it came to that. I suggested getting as far away as possible, probably Australia or New Zealand. So far, only one of the three has expressed an interest. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-likelihood-of-leaving-the-us-if-donald-trump-is-elected-potus/747264.md?page=3)