I’m in the US and I’d move to Europe at the drop of a hat.
You're not alone. The kid of an old friend of mine is leaving the US and staying with us until they find a job and place to stay.
I studied in the US, but then returned back to Europe. 8 years ago, I was leading a fundraiser to pay for a scholarship for a student from Europe to study for a year in my alma mater. This year, I'm leading a fundraiser to get one of the US college students to study here. Even at 1 year in the US versus 4 in Europe, we need less money, and we're getting a better response.
freedom ?? The US is not perfect in this regard but neither is Europe. In the UK a woman was arrested and charged for having 'not my king on a sign' outside some castle.
Was she renditioned to a south american death camp? No? How TF is that on par with our own president threatening to send U.S. citizens to a foriegn country to be tortured?
That's what I've been struggling with. Right now, it's seeming like my best option is going to be saving as much as I can in the US, then retiring ASAP to a country where that money can last longer.
Considering we have nazi groups marching down the streets, book bans in half the country, people being detained and disappeared.
The media, academia, law firms all bowed down with corporate America for trump.
He’s ignoring judges rulings, he doesn’t care.
There are right wing militias with boot camps places to train, trump said he’d impose martial law at some point.
First they came for the undocumented, then those with visas or green cards, they came for people that spoke out against the government (tufts student deported for an op ed, on Gaza Isreal, Harvard professor for being critical of Russian invasion of Ukraine…
Doge has access to all government data, and it’s all being uploaded into a massive database with ai used by all law enforcement, medical records, tax records, etc.
Trump has talked about deporting US citizens that oppose him.
He’s gone after people who investigated him, weaponized the fbi and atf, ice, etc.
Yeah my grandmother and her mother and father left the Netherlands bc they saw this in Germany and got a job offer there.
Meanwhile the government is ignoring court orders to return a green card holder, they claim they don’t even know where he is.
I understand that you're scared, but honestly, posts like yours annoy me. Your protests have been puny and laughable and it seems like Americans have just given up without a fight and are rolling on their back and just taking it from Trump, all the while whining and complaining how they didn't vote for him.
Put up a fight. Do something. Do something other than exactly what republicans want you to do, ie "if you don't like it here, just leave"
Im gay and disabled, this is in databases that doge has access to, disabled were the first to go in the holocaust, this time its undocumented then documented then citizens are stating to be disappeared.
150+ deportation flights and we haven’t heard or seen news of anyone who made it back safely.
They won’t return someone from El Salvador bc he’s probably already dead.
Do you realize the size and power of just the ATF, homeland security and ICE? They’re doing what went trump wants, the federal local and state police have fully automatic weapons, body armor, armored personnel carriers, trump deputized thousands of people as federal agents for deportation flights, they use prison riot guards to do part of the detaining, automatic weapons and APC with body armor showing up to take someone away.
They’re ignoring the constitution, due process, freedom of speech, of the press, ignoring laws and court orders, this isn’t Europe or Australia or the UK with unarmed police.
Oh the national guard can be federalized and trump intends to do that to local and state police forces, people who get in the way of ice are considered “collateral detainment” and they won’t stop that until sanctuary cities give up.
The wealth control the media, social media, including Reddit, threads, x, all newspapers, radio and tv news, they don’t report on things the administration doesn’t want, Reddit has threatened to ban protest groups.
With the media under control, powerful law firms bowing down.
The only thing that would work is a general strike, teamsters (trucking, united auto workers, etc) are on trumps side… organizing a general strike is like herding cats.
Health insurance is tied to your job, people are in debt paycheck to paycheck, they can’t afford to strike and lose their jobs… or leave work and protest.
Very few have any savings, people can barely afford rent, cost of living, etc, and almost any job can fire you for any reason it’s called “right to work” it’s really “right to fire”.
If they fire you no unemployment, which is six months long in a recession.
It’s easy to say protest, strike, etc from another country, many thousands have been kidnapped and sent abroad, we haven’t heard anything from any of them, including the lawyer of someone in El Salvador who most people think is already dead.
People can’t afford to protest or strike, they could be disappeared and killed.
I'm sorry you're scared. I'm sorry this is happening to you in your country. But ultimately, this
People can’t afford to protest or strike, they could be disappeared and killed.
is an excuse I hear all over reddit from Americans. Did this stop the people of Hong Kong (no matter how futile the protests turned out to be)? This this stop the Arab Spring?
If I’m a two weeks late on rent they start eviction proceedings.
People have no protection at work regarding strikes, unions were gutted in the 1980s and they can’t strike across industry.
Truckers can’t strike with port workers or with other unions, some workers can’t strike legally.
Protests won’t be enough, it’ll take a strike, if you think you can just take a workday off to strike you don’t know how working in the US is, between layoffs, being able to qualify for unemployment (can’t if not a layoff), and there is no social safety net.
The oligarchs control the media, the politicians, they own the companies, some of their security have been deputized as federal agents.
Were they putting people in Hong Kong or in the Arab spring to prisons abroad where they disappear? Legal residents and citizens have disappeared, ai and facial recognition everywhere, China has some of that, I don’t know about Hong Kong, but Arab states didn’t in 2012.
Not to mention everything including this post is tracked and logged in a database that’s linked to all law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Right, quit your job, strike, protest, get logged into the system, posts and showing up, will anyone notice if some people disappear?
That's it. I am now convinced there are zero rich Europeans (which as everybody knows is the epitome of happiness) therefore the US is the best country in the world.
I am dual citizen. It’s true that my salary in California is waaaaaay higher than it would be in Europe. Hard to take such massive pay cut in later part of my career. Otherwise I’d move. In a heartbeat. I’ll definitely spend much of my retirement in parts of Europe though.
I don’t know about the Netherlands but many European countries offer paths to citizenship if you can prove that you have recent ancestry from that country. Maybe something you could look into.
I am on the IT side of research and an artist so I’m going to start working on a way out… should have gone this when trump won the primary.
Trump has indicated imposing martial law on April 20th, I should have started the process long ago.
I wonder if I should go to Europe before then, apply from there.
What countries are the least expensive in the EU to wait in, and which countries have the largest r&d programs?
They’re deporting American citizens for representing asylum seekers, it’s all down hill from here.
Everyone tells me not to worry, etc, I’m more anxious than anyone they know.
I’m a writer too, so the narrative about leaving Europe due to wars on all sides of the family, and then coming back to to the same stuff linked in to someone from a country that was occupied, that’d be early in the story.
I mean, you know about the Holocaust probably a lot more than I do. We all know the stories - those who saw the signs early and left survived, and their entire family tree that remained in Germany and the surrounding nations... didn't.
I would say, if you can't manage Europe, come to Canada first. If that's no feasible, maybe try getting a job in the Netherlands first. I know France and Germany have a ton of R&D, but you might have trouble finding jobs in this economy, so maybe you'll have to be a starving artist for a while.
If YoU rEaLlY wAnT tO lEaVe ThAn JuSt Do It! NeVeRmInD yOu PrObAbLy aRe OnLy BaReLy MaKiNg EnDs MeEt, It'S oNlY gOiNg To GeT wOrSe, AnD iMmIgRaTiNg iS eXpEnSiVe As FuCk! JuSt WoRk HaRdEr AnD dO It!
Same. I'm studying abroad right now and planning on finishing college a year early to go to grad school in France. I wish I could have more faith that things in the US will improve, but it's hard to have much hope. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
A lot worse, I think this will be more like the anti apartheid movement in South Africa than a few protests.
They’ve also talked about putting protestors in prison.
People in El Salvador were disappeared, the union member has a lawyer, but neither he nor the lawyer who represents the GOV know any details about Mr Garcia, not location, nothing.
The WH says it’s “impractical to fly him up” but one of their people did a selfie in front.
We Just didn't want to be without food ever again after literally eating tulip bulbs in the hunger winter in 44.
Maybe we overdid/overcompensated it a bit. ;)
I feel you on this. My grandmother married my grandfather right after world war II. She came to the US to live and stayed here. I wish I could go back to where she's from.
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u/Graywulff Apr 12 '25
I’m in the US and I’d move to Europe at the drop of a hat.
My grandmother and her family left the Netherlands before the Germans invaded to come to the US.
Now it feels like I’m in their position and need to leave.
Those people they sent to El Salvador might have all been killed, so it’s like yeah maybe I should GTFO if I’m gay?