If you’re like me, you found the election fairly brutal and exhausting. I spent an enormous amount of time trying to influence friends and family, to no end. The contrast between the candidates and likely outcomes for the future could not have been more diametrically opposed. And yet, so many acted as if this were another “normal” election, or simply embraced an unreasoning reality, and were impervious to evidence and discussion. A lot of people are still acting that way, as if Trump, an extraordinary business failure with no intellectual curiosity or discipline, will somehow “grow” into the office. As if he will keep his campaign promises, however contradictory and impossible. This is folly and madness. This is whistling past the graveyard.
But there you have it. The election is over. For the most part, they are all over. America will now become a two-party state similar to Mexico under the PRI, which is to say a one-party kleptocracy, where the Democrats are a ineffectual Potemkin party circling the electoral drain for the purpose of convincing the electorate they still have choice. The GOP will gerrymander and voter suppress every local, state and national election from this point forward. And the Supreme Court will validate those efforts, and reinforce them. Poll taxes and property qualifications will likely be back in time for the 2020 election.
In the meantime, the level of theft and economic predation will be extraordinary. The Republican party, following the model they set in Kansas and Wisconsin, will break every union and pension left from the 20th century. They will privatize everything. And that presents an enormous challenge for millions of us. If you’re approaching retirement, you will see both Social Security and Medicare privatized; when the next crash comes, in a few years, whatever earning you had paid into those government accounts will be wiped out. Health care will become increasingly difficult to afford, even as you need it the most. If you’re starting a family, home ownership will become unaffordable, as the deregulated economy and enormous government deficits drive inflation and lending rates to new heights. Already the GOP is rolling back overtime and minimum wage. Two and three jobs will not be enough to keep you out of poverty. If you’re young and looking forward to college, you will find it increasingly out of reach, and meaningless. Save the military, you have no job prospects. Kleptocracies hire on the basis of who you know, not what you know, or what you can do. The fix is now in, and unless you are in on the fix, you are out. There will be favelas and colonias in every American city in five years. If you are still here, you will likely be living in one.
On the other hand, the sheer incompetence of Trump and his toadies insures that government will be chaotic and slapdash. As was the case with Bush, an administration so shot through with blind stupidity will undoubtedly fail at protecting the homeland from terrorists. When that attack occurs, the response will be in full cover-your-ass mode, and so the fear mongering will reach fascistic levels very quickly. And with the most extraordinary police and surveillance infrastructure in history at their disposal, including data-mining and drones, even the clowns governing the country will be able to do serious damage to civil liberties and freedom of expression. And anyone of draft age in the next four years is at risk as Trump lashes out.
So, yes, it’s bad. And it leaves you with few options. If the Comey letter taught us nothing, it is that political reform within the United States is impossible. It may be that some of the secession movements on the West Coast might have the ability to blunt the coming disaster, but it’s a long shot.
Which leaves you exile. And exile in a very troubled world where Putin is waging war on the European Union via the type of disinformation and faux-populism that has already succeeded in the UK and US. Where he is waging a genocidal war in Syria precisely to flood Europe with refugees to destabilize the political order. Where the fragmentation of international order and law mean that there will be no effective framework to combat global warming, at this last moment. So there are few places safe from the attack of the Oligarchs.
But you do have a right to live your retirement years with the savings you earned in your career. You do have the right to health care, to education, to living free of fear, to living free of ecological calamity, and free of war and legalized theft. The Second World War taught us that you can’t reform fascism from within. So this blog is a place to share ideas about where we can start rebuilding outside of the United States. To identify countries and cities and places that still embrace reason and fairness and tolerance and diversity and compassion. Places where we can wait out the coming economic collapse and war, and start to rebuild.
We want this site to be a clearing house to help you move away from America. If you want to share, please comment or contact us.
American Exile 