When Trump was re-elected as president in 2024, I knew I’d need to leave the United States for a while. Not eventually. Not hypothetically. But in a way I felt deep in my gut before my mind could catch up.
My husband and I run our own business — a nomadic creative studio — which allows us to work anywhere with an Internet connection. In years past, we spent winters abroad for about three months at a time. But after the last election, I began planning to live and work outside the U.S. more often, realizing that distance might be the only way to stay grounded through what was coming.
This decision wasn’t born of impulse. It came after nearly a decade of watching democratic norms erode and threats once considered unthinkable become increasingly overt.
My instinct had been the same in 2016 when Trump was first elected: to leave.
But the millions who showed up for the Women’s March in 2017 gave me what I desperately needed: hope. I believed staying mattered. That resistance would grow. That enough people would eventually say, this is not normal — and act on it.
So I stayed. I organized. I protested. I volunteered. I spoke out. I boycotted. I tried to persuade. I ended relationships with — and lost respect for — people I had known my whole life. And I repeated, over and over:
When Biden was elected in 2020, it briefly felt like the country had learned something. Like the Trump era had been a glitch — a terrible mistake we would never allow to happen again.
But we did. And it broke my spirit in unimaginable ways.
This past year, I lived and worked primarily in Latin America. I kept up with the news, but the distance made a difference.
When despair crept in, I could step back into the joy of my daily life abroad. The chaos didn’t disappear, but it no longer occupied every corner of my nervous system.
In October 2025, after ten months abroad, we returned to the U.S. to vote in Virginia’s gubernatorial election and to spend time with family and friends over the holidays. I also came back with a question I hadn’t fully admitted to myself:
Is there anything here that would make me stay?
I returned hoping for signs of collective resistance. While I felt moments of solidarity at the No King’s Day and Remove the Regime protests we attended, what I overwhelmingly felt was quiet resignation.
Despite nationwide calls to boycott major corporations supporting the Trump administration, Amazon packages still lined my neighborhood. Starbucks was full. And as it got closer to the holidays, Target parking lots remained packed.
On one outing, I overheard two young adults in their twenties complaining about high prices, but concluding that both parties were flawed — which is why they hadn’t bothered to vote. A stark reminder of the nearly 90 million Americans who didn’t vote in the 2024 presidential election — more than the number who voted for either Trump or Harris.
The vision I carried of returning to “Vive La Résistance” — of a country actively pushing back — quickly dissolved.
In its place, I discovered a reality both shocking and unsurprising: Americans going about their lives as usual.
What unsettled me most wasn’t that Trump still has supporters (which is bewildering, but no longer shocking), but that many who know better have adjusted their lives around this administration as though resistance is someone else’s responsibility.
In an attempt to rationalize the non-action, I recognized that maybe Americans aren’t refusing to fight — they’re simply trying to survive: to enjoy small pleasures, preserve moments of normalcy, and feel a sense of control in this unstable world.
I understand that impulse. Truly. But somewhere along the way, surviving seems to have hardened into active passivity.
A post by American writer and professor Stuart Rojstaczer sums it up plainly:
“This isn’t just about Trump — it’s about what we, as a country, have decided to tolerate… You can’t just say, ‘that’s just Trump.’ No. He’s the President of the United States. He represents us. He reflects us.”
That distinction matters. Because when we dismiss his behavior as spectacle — or as something we simply have to put up with — we aren’t insulating ourselves from it. We’re helping to normalize it.
Trumpism doesn’t persist solely because of its most ardent supporters — but because millions of people have learned to live alongside it. So when people around the world look at the U.S. with disbelief or disgust, that reaction isn’t misplaced — it’s earned.
Rojstaczer also acknowledges that what’s most alarming isn’t just Trump himself, but the lack of organized resistance. There’s no nationally recognized opposition leader, no massive youth movement like those in other countries, and no sense of urgency proportionate to the threat.
Instead, we tell ourselves that the real reckoning can wait until the next election. That endurance is enough. That others will step up when it really matters, or when the consequences start to directly affect them.
As a result, no action is taken. Political yard signs feel too confrontational. Corporate boycotts too inconvenient. Cutting ties too extreme.
People mistakenly believe that avoiding visible political alignment, shopping at big-box stores instead of local businesses, and maintaining relationships with Trump supporting family and friends are acts of neutrality. But neutrality, in this moment, is not benign. It’s the very mechanism by which authoritarianism takes root.
I want to be clear: I do not come at this from a place of judgment or moral purity. And I’m deeply aware that my ability to leave is shaped by privilege — my race, my education, and a career that travels with me. Many cannot leave, even if they desperately want to.
I leave not to escape responsibility, but because too few are fighting to make resistance here sustainable.
I’m not alone in my desire to be out of the country. Holly Baxter, senior writer at The Independent, reports that a growing number of Americans — including students, professors, retirees, and even immigrants — are choosing to live abroad. Their decision reflects a sober reality: for many, the U.S. has become an increasingly untenable place to live. So much so that a new phrase has emerged:
“The new American Dream is leaving America.”
My frustration isn’t with those who are trapped or facing real constraints, but with those who are prioritizing comfort and convenience over taking action.
Even among the people who oppose what’s happening, many continue to enable it — consciously or not — through their daily choices.
I know we’re all exhausted. But understanding that exhaustion doesn’t make it any easier to live in a culture where the abnormal is now background noise and the demise of our democracy barely interrupts everyday life.
Over the years, I’ve written extensively about Trumpism and its effects on our country: the fallout of Election 2024, the rise of an oligarchy, the Republican Party’s brand devolution, and threats posed by irresponsible journalism.
I’ve researched how we got here, where we’re headed if nothing changes, and what it’s costing us. What I’m reckoning with now is the return on that investment.
Is it worth staying here when resignation appears to be the dominant cultural response?
This isn’t about giving up. I remain engaged, speak out, and still believe in the country we can, and should, be. But with each passing day, it becomes harder to reconcile living in a place where opposing authoritarianism is treated as a personal preference rather than a collective obligation.
For me, leaving isn’t surrender. It’s self-preservation — a form of resistance in itself — and a recognition that endurance without numbers cannot make the impact we desperately need.
According to American political scientist and professor Erica Chenoweth, only 3.5 percent of a population — about 12 million people in the U.S. — is required to create transformative, nonviolent change. And yet, even though it’s a very small sample, we have failed to consistently reach that threshold.
These are dark days for our democracy. Caring has almost become unsustainable — and that too, is a political outcome, meant to exhaust us until we stop expecting better.
I wish I could keep persuading people to join the fight. But after years of active resistance, that effort currently costs more than I have left to give.
If and when Americans — whether a majority or just that crucial 3.5 percent — choose action over apathy, I will be standing by, ready to fight on the front lines.
I only hope that moment comes before it’s too late.
Until enough Americans recognize that passively enduring injustice will not change our circumstances, the foundations of our democracy will continue to be undermined.
As I leave again, I do so not because I’ve stopped dreaming of a better America — but because, right now, distance is the only way I know how to keep that dream alive.
