We should consider the expatriation factor
If this is happening in larger numbers than we imagine, it is an insurmountable problem.
Immediately after the election results were announced in November of 2024, I had a severe panic attack. It was severe enough that I thought I might be having a coronary event and considered going to the ER. I had rapid palpitations and I felt like I might die. Instead, I chose to take half a Xanax and see if that helped. If it helped, I would know that it was less my heart failing than that I was having a PTSD-related panic attack. I felt my heart racing all the way down to my feet. The Xanax helped, and that went away.
The next day, I started researching where, when and how to move with my family who have a few challenges in terms of our desirability as immigrants. I have two daughters with developmental disabilities, and my husband and I are nearly 60. There are countries that flat-out will not accept older immigrants unless they are very affluent. That, unfortunately, is not us. My younger daughter and I started studying German, Italian and Norwegian every day until we found out that Norway, our first choice, was one of those restrictive countries. My husband is the kind of man who makes changes very, very slowly, and does not see the urgency in a situation until it is too late or nearly too late to avoid the worst. He is integral in any plan for us to leave because he is the most employable person in the family. Needless to say, we are still here, and periodically I have a version of the election-night panic attacks over that.
My feelings about that are not unique. Many people shared the same terror, many people sought the same resolution, the same safe places to live.
But how many of them were not stopped by any of the obstructions that stopped my family? How many are simply gone?
Recently, “The New York Times” released a story that alarmed many about how the Republicans added 4.5 million new voters between 2020 and 2024, 4.5 million people the Democrats didn’t add, some of whom may have been Democrats. They said that this would create a hole that it would take us years to rectify. This writer, however, is not concerned about what happened from 2020-2024. It is irrelevant to now. We all know Donald Trump misrepresented his agenda to many, many people who are now regretting their votes. We all know that Elon Musk openly paid people to register as Republicans. That was then and this is now. Many people have been shorn of their illusions about him, so no, I am not inclined to allow the events of 2020-2024 to alarm me, but I will tell you what does. The Democratic Party thinks it has a “messaging problem.” I think that the fact that our power structure thinks the problem is messaging and not the absence of pure, raw courage and follow-through, backed up with action, is the actual problem. I am not alone. Voters have cited in polling repeatedly that they see the Democrats as weak, cowardly and too “woke,” which is it’s own topic. Democrats are viewed this way across the board, by the left, the right and the center. It is SO bad, that even a thieving, pedophile, and diverse criminal who runs the country like he’s openly declared war on its cities isn’t an automatic dealbreaker. People don’t like him, some hate him, but NOBODY wants to reward a party that refuses to stand up to the evil he and his party represent. Donald Trump is a bastard. Most people, even some of his supporters, I believe know he’s a bastard because he is so unapologetic about it. They thought it was entertaining at first, maybe now quite a few don’t like him, but…what they like even less is hiring a party that is feckless to run the country. They know our weakness is part of how he got this far.
Democrats have always run on policy because Democrats are strong on policy. Our party has the best policy for the greatest number of people. Most of our office holders genuinely care about the average American, want to alleviate suffering, and want to give the opportunity towards prosperity to those who do not have it. But when our leaders are hopelessly unable to make sure people know that, it seems to people that if they can’t make themselves seem like a better deal than an evil bastard, why should anyone feel safe with them in power? It is that feeling of lack of safety, our leaders’ inability to meet this moment, that may have made so many blue voters feel so insecure about being here, that we may be mathematically unable to win an election because they have GONE. That should scare us much more than what went on from 2020-2024.
It is not hard for me to imagine people feeling this because I feel it myself. Many times, I have watched as our party leaders clutched their pearls and acted as if setting a good example would mean ANYTHING to our opposition. Their leadership and their media will feed them any caricature of us that it suits their desire for their masses to have, and the masses will believe it no matter WHAT we do. There have been admittedly dire, extreme, shocking things our leaders were called upon to do; and while those actions match those adjectives, they would have been necessary and entirely appropriate to the circumstances. There are things they could have done that while, yes, they would have moved the Overton window, they would have made people feel that our freedom and our future were being protected by warriors. There still ARE, and not all such plans are violent. A head of state cannot be a warrior all the time, or s/he (let’s face it, usually he) becomes a despot, but they must be able to do it when it needs to be done (real times when it must be done, not manufactured circumstances because said leader wants to play dictator). This is not a perfect world in which war or secession never happen. We on the left did not ask for the country to be this polarized, but we nonetheless must live in the reality of the possibility that co-existing as one nation is no longer healthy. I understand that this post will present as alarming to some and I will clarify it in short order.
I have removed a section in which I referred to the Charlie Kirk assassination because I have concluded that I was not in the right headspace to write it, and some of it may misrepresent me.
I don’t trust a party that relies on a good, stern talking to, or rally after rally with no backup plan, to keep this party safe. I have allowed my husband to drag his heels to the point where I myself have often wondered if we would be abandoning everyone else by leaving. His complacency has become mine, at least intermittently. I’ve wondered if I’m just handing this country over to monsters. That makes me want to stay and fight though given my age and health, that’s unlikely.
In any event, I am far more interested in hearing what has happened with registered Democrats since November 2024 than before it; I think that’s far more integral to the position in which we find ourselves. As Jon Snow was heard to say, “The side with the greatest numbers wins 9 times out of 10.”
On another note, Donald Trump is already banging on again about stopping mail-in voting. It’s more than a year until the next election; why do you think he’s doing that? Perhaps he knows that many of our people have left, and he wants to make sure they’ve given up their votes by leaving. It really could not be more important that we see that, and don’t go into a state of denial.