83 Comments

The worst thing that happened to me was when I found out that my country was populated with a never before anticipated huge number of people who would have felt right at home in 1930’s Nazi Germany.

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And you are not alone in that sad horrifying realization. I don't know that I will ever come to terms with it.

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I join you in that, sadly, especially because I chose this country as home, 50 years ago, as one of freedom from such lack of evil callousness.

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Fifty years ago we were golden. It's not my choice outside of my birthright and I am just so sad.

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I left the country ten years ago. It was good to me, until it wasn’t.

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Ahh, thanks for your response. Yes....absolutely, different strokes for different folks. This upcoming election may determine what I do and where I go next...just retired two years ago and I’m footloose !

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We’re planning on leaving if Trump is re-elected. We’re also retired and I’ve been researching this for years. Here’s what I learned: Unfortunately, most countries don’t want us. If we’re not working, we’re not contributing to the economy (though we’d have to pay taxes.) We can get Social Security benefits virtually anywhere but Medicare doesn’t cover you outside the country, which means you’ll need to buy into the country’s healthcare system or (much more likely) pay for everything yourself. A couple of countries, Ireland and New Zealand among them, will take you if you invest around $500,000 in either a business or the government. I’m looking into Spain and Portugal but I’m not expecting anything easy.

Totally different story in Central and South America. A fellow Substacker lives in Mexico, seems really happy there. I’m planning a visit to the town to see if it would work for us. There’s also a huge expat community, mostly Brits and Americans, in Ecuador. The countries that Trump dismissed as “shithole countries” are very welcoming. Each country has different requirements for residence but they are all happy to see Americans (and their money).

I hope it won’t be necessary to leave but I’m not sitting around waiting for Kristallnacht. If Trump is in, we’re out.

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I am also tempted to run for the hills, but I can't because I'm disabled. Have to stick it out and fight with what I have left, which ain't much - just my voice and my vote.

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Same here. I tried to move to Canada, but they won't even consider anyone with a disability.

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Really? Well, do you have to switch citizenship?

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I left 2 years ago for a multitude of reasons, one being the anger all around me.

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That's one of the very best reasons. I should have left then.

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Kerry: would you be open to corresponding privately regarding being an expat? I am thinking of doing this.

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Sure. Always happy to help out.

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I will too Jana.

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Where did you go? I may be leaving too and just wondering...

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Eight years in Peru, now in Catalonia. As an expat, I can say that the appeal of a place depends very much on who you are and what you like. Definitely different strokes for different folks.

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I'm looking at Portugal....

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Beautiful country. Lots of Americans. Frankly many of the American ex-pats everywhere are assholes. They bring their American bad attitudes and shit with them.

You need to love the Portuguese people and like the foreigners from other countries.

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I have good friends living and who have lived there. Pros and cons like everywhere.

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I moved to a fabulous town in Mexico. The Mexican's are the best!

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I lived in Veracruz in the 70’s. Love the Jarochos.

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Yeah the US isn't going to change for the better.

The only solution is to leave 🤔

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Don't come to terms with it.

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The GOP today: Racists + Nazis + Misogynists. All idiots, everyone of them. Human beings who think they are superior to other humans because of their sex, skin color, or religion are the dumbest of the dumb. It’s like pine trees claiming they’re superior to palm trees. Anyone who still believes that the Republican Party has something to offer is lying to themselves and others. This is what happened when people joined the Nazi party, they told themselves that they were part of a grand scheme instead of recognizing that they were condoning hate, lies and ultimately murder on a mass scale.

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To me it's so inconceivable that this is happening all over again! But I look at the future generation - my nephew is 16 and people like him and his friends can stop this! They're not as oblivious as my generation was. They see what's happening and they are so bright and promising! I think in today's youth the reasonable, fair, just, diverse, kind, caring, intelligent and free-thinking out number any future mAGats in droves. They will die out whether these elections coming up go disastrously or not. That's my hope.

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And that is worth fighting for, too! Also why the Maga want to attack schools & libraries.

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Yes, I too see a lot of hope in extraordinary children coming into this world whose talents are far beyond anything I've seen in the human race before.

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That is true. So many similarities between out time now and the formation of Hitler & the Nazis.

It seems to start with all these people with grievances and then we have our own narcissistic sociopath as well as the"leader".

Sheesh...

I am sure my SA $$ would go further elsewhere but I don't want to give into these bastards. Maybe it will be my last stand but maybe I can do something to change it,too.

I have traveled quite a bit. South America is quite beautiful and Colombia or Ecuador was the first place I ever smelled tear gas!

Portugal & Spain equally beautiful and some of the best horses and riding I have enjoyed.

If our democracy is worth sling I guess I will go down with the ship. I think the US keeps stability in many other countries. So there's that.

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Sorry missed a typo or two, not sling but saving

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I figured that

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I applaud this comment!

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And look how many of the Germans fell for it! That's what scares me. It looks like the same is happening again here!

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When my mom first came here from Germany to visit a pen pal and then to do doctoral work, she was shocked at the sexism and racism she encountered, because Americans had been rubbing in her face and that of other Germans how they were not as racist as Germans. I would say, in true form Germans were just more direct, as they always are. So, the more subtle Americans were racist to a point of lynchings and sterilizations, something the Nazi's did too to little Afro-German children who were fathered by French soldiers from the African colonies in the Rhineland area. The Americans blatantly practiced genocide on Native American people and their culture, putting a bounty on their heads. Our history, though short, is filled with racial violence, think of Tulsa, think of Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919. At the same time we also have created a diverse country and many people are living together in harmony. It can be done and it is done. So, what these Republicans are doing, is returning to the days of Dixie, and are as such all Dixiecrats. Like Putin, they imagine some empire of the past to be better. Well, let them get dental care by the dentists of the past, as it would have been done in those previous empires. While Germans were exterminating people in Crematoriums, we were allowing the Nazi Party to meet and grow, but it did not take over our country. Let us hope it does not, because that could easily be another name for the Republican Party with their beliefs. I think it would be more accurate too. Here is a senator in my neighbor state of Indiana trying to walk back that he agreed that . https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/23/indiana-sen-mike-brauns-interracial-marriage-comment-what-he-said/7139127001/

I know that a friend's parents moved from Indiana to Illinois to get married in the late 1950s or early 1960s, as an Interracial couple. Both were librarians. Indiana is a state where the legality of interracial marriage only occurred in 1965.

https://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/items/19094d58-d717-4e1a-88e4-d2292f853b53

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Good post.

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And that is why I am leaving it.

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Yeah, Nazi Germany, where my mother grew up. Her family were Social Democrats, refused to join the Nazi Party, and you wouldn't believe what they went through over there. She told me lots of stories that would curdle your blood. How in fuck's name can ANYONE, no matter how stupid they are, promote Hitler's agenda here in this country? Throw away everything my family went through, that my 2 fathers fought for in WWII and Korea? Is freedom worthless? Do the white supremists really believe they are superior? Looks more to me like they have an inferiority complex!

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That's it, exactly. They feel inferior, often aware that they're poor or uneducated, so they have to declare themselves superior and affirm that to each other in churches and social groups and the Republican party.

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Charlie Kirk pontificating on Black women of intellect, of strength....receiving an education that “should have been reserved for White folks” at various universities. Well ...please give us Charlie’s educational background... a community college dropout... That says it all about Charlie, his educational record, his anti everything that is not about supporting Whites, Christianity, male dominance, and superiority..yeah that Charlie who is just another grifter taking money from the White Wing grievance victimhood machine... a disgusting little little man.

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Yep. White men are terrified their easier ride to the top jig is up.

And I sure hope I live long enough to see it.

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Amen

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Once a door is opened to you, you still have to do the work. Affirmative Action isn't pushing people through higher education like an assembly line. Kirk is a racist asshole.

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The reason I enjoy your posts is because you are able to tell the truth bluntly and with humor. I, in fact, was raped by a Mexican and I never really thought about it until I just read your recent blog. And what's interesting, is that it didn't cause me to hate Mexicans. It didn't cause me to hate men. Because apparently I am able to see that we are all individuals and it makes no sense to lump everybody who is a certain color or a certain race or a certain gender into a box and label that box as something bad simply because someone did something at some time that I found morally offensive.

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Just the intellectual heft of Ketanji Brown Jackson's brain could squish Kirk and should. I grew up knowing the bottom rung of whites tolerated that somewhat more because they could always say they were above someone and those someones they were above were always far and away better than most.

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When Obama won, -- and the eight years of his presidency, were probably among the best years in our modern Democracy. Then, the pendulum swung in the other direction and it’s still swinging....We’re digressing into something awful. A cross between the old-west (everyone carry guns...) and Handmaiden’s Tale. I like Kerry’s comment above...she left the country which may be a consideration for others depending on the 2024 election....There’s absolutely NO television series that can compete with the drama and antics happening in our government today. Oy vay.

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Complacency sadly thrived during the Obama years. Blocked supreme court appointments? Huh? Let's demand free college!

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I’m not sure I’d call that complacency. I would call it motivation and hard-fought efforts to BLOCK everything Obama tried to accomplish.... INCLUDING his appointments to the Supreme Court (Merrick Garland)...not to mention his failed effort of getting RBG to retire when she was getting ‘up there in years’.

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Hard fought on the republican side, not Dems. Democrats let it all slide and then let the fake news machine convince them that they shouldn't bother voting because.

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(Oops, the correct word is “Regressing”...not “digressing”....)

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That “jerk water district” includes Sedona, one of the wealthiest enclaves in Arizona. It also includes the not very tiny town and area where my parents live - Prescott. This guy is an idiot. Sad the folks in that district didn’t see what a racist asshole he is before they voted him in. AZ has nine districts, and the second district is ginormous. It looks like it’s 3/4’s of the state. Crazy.

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He has a complicated legacy, but LBJ was one smart cookie.

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Before you know it, they'll be screaming the N-word out loud on Fox News.

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My first thought when watching that escalator was "whoo boy, he's giving permission." And man did much of the country say "thank you, I will."

And yeah, context matters. That seems to be lost on a humungous number of people, both sides of the aisle.

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The "lizard brain" hypothesis (we could get more scientific by referring this as occurring in the amygdala (emotion-related) part of the brain where studies show reactions corresponding to other indicators of prejudice), alone would be the reasons why people that do not easily stand out as red-hatted, spittle spewing MAGA nutbags actually end up voting for Trump and crazy GOP nutbags.

Add to that that in the recent generations where marijuana is toked copiously during the most formative years of the amygdala to the degree the growth is permanently retarded... not good. Not good.

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True about the lizard brain. But I doubt many of the MAGAts spent much time toking.

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does beer drinking do the same? that i would believe.

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Maybe. Or maybe if it led down the rabbit hole of alcoholism. I don't know, but overindulging probably does not do well to the brain, I heard once that every drink you take kills brain cells :D

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It is weird and something that does not follow logic, in some places. One place where I grew up, some high school friends partied all the time, but when they married and settled down, they did so out in the boondocks and became similiar to the nutjobs around them. One I know who was a complete Trump supporter now owns a pot dispensary. It does explain why these rural areas typically vote Red in elections, as opposed to urban areas and urban bedroom towns. I recently went to a county fair out in the sticks because I like the agricultural exhibits, and I can tell you with some certainty that I probably would have been one of the few Blue voters there lol And that is not even in the Bible Belt.

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It is unfortunate that hate is such an easy sell. Tommy Tuberville is just a disgrace to peoplehood! I think his Neanderthal genes are running the show. Actually, I assume Neanderthals must have been nicer because they were able to get together with Homo Sapiens, showing some pro-social behaviors that Republicans seem to be lacking. I am still reeling from hearing that like the Wagner Group of Prigozhin, DeSatan is creating his own militia. I guess this is so when he follows in Trumps footsteps to steal the election, he has his militia ready and trained to do his bidding. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/15/ron-desantis-florida-state-guard-militia-veterans-quit

I can imagine how things will play themselves out with that racist asshole. But, he seems determined to top Trump in nastiness. It is a battle that will not be won, because they are both the nastiest people.

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This is perfect. Thanks, brother.

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I was a research librarian in my former life and I can’t tell you how pissed off i get with the bullshit they’re being given about “wokeness”, diversity and other socially important books. I remember back several years ago some Fed agency (FBI I think), was trying to get patron info from check out cards and the librarians weren’t having any of that nonsense. An agent called them “radical militant librarians”. Made me laugh, but now I’m thinking “damn straight”.

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Yes-obvious facts. Disgusting

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I’ve been listening to Rachel Maddow’s new podcast, Deja News. I can’t recommend it more highly enough. It’s both reassuring and disconcerting that the country has been here before, that there are precedents for our current political dumpster fire. We’ve come close to losing our democracy before, we’ve seen Florida try to legislate against homosexuality and we’ve been pro-Fascist more than once. The Republican Party has always comprised fuckheads and authoritarian-friendly doofuses. Even Marjorie *Jewish space lasers* Sporkfoot isn’t without precedent; there have been racist, xenophobic, homophobic assholes throughout our history. So it’s reassuring that we’ve been here before but disconcerting that we haven’t learned a thing. Florida is still trying to legislate against homosexuality, the Republican Party is still autocrat-friendly and Marjorie *Tweedledumb* Greene is just another Father Coughlin. The country is in a very dark place and I’m scared. I know what happened in Germany and I’m seeing the same things happening here. I’m trying not to panic.

There’s one thought that always gives me joy: They can legislate against it, gerrymander against it, rally against it and protest all they like, but the fact remains that by 2046, this will be a minority-majority country. The old white guys will be outnumbered and despite their best efforts, they’ll ultimately have to give up the reighns of power. I won’t live to see it but just imagining it makes me happy.

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History really does repeat itself if lessons aren’t learned.

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History really does repeat itself if the

lesson(s) doesn’t stink in.

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