Many tweets, Facebook posts, and blog posts are people expressing how they will move out of the country if Trump becomes the next president. There are various articles online that list countries to move to if Trump becomes president, which celebrities will become expatriates, and which places will welcome U.S. expatriates. Every election people state interest in leaving the country if a particular politician wins. However, will this time be different?
Trump represents economic enterprise, deregulation, and might as well be the spokesperson for capitalism. Trump candidly makes racist, classist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic remarks—and the list is far longer than those five examples. In an interview on foreign policy, Trump stated that he would “sit back” in reference to the situation in Syria (read the interview here). Trump’s “friendship” with Putin is currently his foreign policy for Russia. He also believes that a wall is a viable solution to the issue of immigration and that immigrants, in “a country founded by immigrants,” are not entitled to citizenship (more on his immigration policy here). His policy is problematic and tainted by prejudices and his policies lack details on how he would actually implement them. So, if he becomes president and targets many populations of people, will people actually leave the U.S.?
As people list where they would move to if Trump wins, it parallels to the Draft Dodgers during Vietnam. Trump’s potential presidency cannot be conflated to a war, but a Trump presidency could mean that people might actually leave the U.S. People would not be dodging a draft, but they might be dodging a problematic presidency that especially targets particular populations. Trump’s border wall might prevent people from entering the U.S. but it will not prevent people from leaving the U.S. Currently, the most purportedly popular destinations for people nervous about a Trump presidency are: Mexico, Canada, the U.K., Australia, France, Jamaica, Ireland, Sweden, and Brazil (here is a more extensive article).
However, people rarely become expatriates for political reasons. People leave the U.S. for a variety of reasons, but those reasons tend to be related to economic opportunities, new challenges, and for a different lifestyle, according to an article in US News (here). The actual statistics of how many people are leaving the U.S. are difficult to find because American Exceptionalism incorrectly presumes people come to the U.S. to stay. It is impossible to know whether or not people would actually leave on political premises if Trump became president, but there might be a new era of Draft-Dodgers, just in this case they would be Trump-Dodgers.
