Politics
Opinion: Is 2024 the year you'll become an American expat?
In 2000, Eddie Vedder, the Pearl Jam baritone and outspoken proponent of abortion rights, threatened to move to “a different country” if George W. Bush were elected president.
“With three Supreme Court positions opening in the next administration, I’m frightened to think of a Republican in office,” he said.
The same year, Alec Baldwin reportedly said he’d leave if Bush won. So did the late director Robert Altman.
Bush won. Vedder stayed. Baldwin stayed. Altman stayed. The right-wing joke about huffy posturing by celebrities was born.
Indeed, the threat to leave the United States if X or Y is elected — or B or T — is usually both bombastic and empty. The common wisdom is that it’s better not to make the threat at all. It’s like divorce. You’re not supposed to mention it unless you’re ready to follow through.
But with pollsters telling us that “dread” tops the list of Americans’ feelings about the 2024 election, and with Donald Trump hoping for an explicitly dictatorial White House comeback, the prospect of decamping for more democratic shores has fresh appeal. Hollow threats are foolish. But it’s worth remembering a fundamental freedom: to move.
I’ve hardly ever thought about leaving the U.S. in political protest. Even after the elections of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, whose politics diverged steeply from my own, expatriating didn’t cross my mind. Those two were democratically elected by an American majority.
Yes, being forced to accept presidents who were opposed by the majority of the American electorate — George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016 — was demoralizing. Presidents who slide into the Oval Office courtesy of gerrymandering and the ever-more-imbalanced electoral college, with flagrant assists from the Supreme Court (Bush) or the Kremlin (Trump) are terrible for morale in a democracy.
Still, I haven’t yet fired up listings for rentals in Auckland, New Zealand, or Vancouver.
But accepting a leader who installs himself in the White House with a violent insurrection, as Trump tried to do just three years ago? That’s where the expatriation fantasy kicks in in earnest.
In last year’s sweeping history of human civilization, “The Dawn of Everything,” the authors David Graeber and David Wengrow propose that human society requires three priceless freedoms: the freedom to disobey, the freedom to reimagine society and the freedom to move away.
To remember that we can indeed escape this country if the American experiment is hijacked is to send a signal to the nervous system that we’re still free — in all three ways. Until all the borders and harbors and highways close, until every single plane is grounded and martial law instituted, we’re not stuck here.
It’s a deeply worthwhile practice of citizenship to visit the question of whether America has finally failed. After all, the origin story of many American families is escape. Consider it a thought experiment: What would it take for you to leave?
According to Gallup, record numbers of Americans seriously considered leaving the United States during Trump’s term. Sixteen percent said they wanted to split for good. This was considerably higher than during the administrations of George W. Bush (11%) and Barack Obama (10%). Most notably, 40% of women under 30 told Gallup in 2019 that they’d like to leave. According to data collected last year by the Washington Post, the desire to get out spiked again after Roe vs. Wade was overturned in June 2022.
When I asked ChatGPT about emigrating to Canada I didn’t exactly get the kindly “Come on in!” message I’d hoped for. Instead, it told me to try my luck with the Canadian bureaucracy — visas and family sponsorship, Express Entry and the Provincial Nominee Program.
At the same time, if you can find a foothold abroad, it’s easier than ever to support yourself in foreign lands. Pandemic-era workforces remain far-flung. Last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that around 28% of private-sector establishments had employees teleworking some or all the time, and other research indicates that that percentage may be too low. You might be able to leave the U.S. and take your job with you.
And plenty of people do leave. In 2020, a prominent American legal journalist took her family to Canada, where she grew up. She’s content no longer to live in the long shadow of our sold-out, far-right Supreme Court. A 26-year-old gay American, who presciently fled stateside political instability for Norway in 2019, convened a Reddit group called r/AmerExit to help others considering a move. One member, Richard Altfeld, headed to the Netherlands with his wife, Tiana Esperanza. A biracial couple, Altfeld and Esperanza were — among other things — fed up with American racism.
The urge to escape, of course, isn’t only felt by liberals. Another Gallup poll finds that pride in being American is at near-record lows for Republicans.
If they’re casting around for new homelands, Republicans might look to Trump for inspiration. On the stump he’s been lavishing praise on the dictatorships in Hungary, China, Russia and North Korea. His followers have at least four solid options for expatriation if President Biden wins reelection.
But, of course, actually leaving isn’t easy. The hitch in moving to Canada may be bureaucracy. But the hitch in moving to the autocracies that are richest in Trumpian values is that they also tend to be hostile to immigrants.
Virginia Heffernan is a regular contributor to Wired and writes a newsletter, Magic and Loss, at virginiaheffernan.substack.com.
Politics
Trump-backed Board of Peace, Israel ‘will take action’ if Hamas remains out of compliance: Netanyahu advisor
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Michael Eisenberg, a top advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says Israel and the newly-created Board of Peace will “take action” against Hamas if it does not comply with the peace terms it agreed to.
Eisenberg made the comments during an interview with Fox News on Sunday. He said Hamas is currently out of compliance with a wider peace agreement and is refusing to give up its weapons to “demilitarize” Gaza.
“I think all the options are on the table since Hamas is noncompliant with the 20-point plan, and they haven’t delivered their weapons like they were supposed to. And so we’ll have to wait and see. But like I said, this is incredibly well thought out. Give President Trump a tremendous amount of credit and his team of people credit. They’ve literally thought through every stage of this from beginning to end,” Eisenberg said.
“And by the way, and as President Trump said, there’s an easy way and a hard way. Everyone prefers the easy way, which is Hamas. With the help of the mediators delivers the weapons, but if they don’t, there’s a hard way too.,” he added.
TRUMP CONVENES FIRST ‘BOARD OF PEACE’ MEETING AS GAZA REBUILD HINGES ON HAMAS DISARMAMENT
President Donald Trump (L) greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at the White House. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Eisenberg went on to say that Iran must also eventually give up control over Gaza under the 20-pont plan agreed to between the U.S., Israel and Hamas.
“Hamas is still there. But the 20-point plan says they cannot be there. They cannot be a part of government. They cannot bear arms. They have to become Swedish, basically, in order for them to stay in any role in Gaza. And so I suggest they do that sooner rather than later. And I think progress is slow. You can’t microwave a 30-year problem. It doesn’t work. Sociologists,” he said.
Eisenberg’s comments come amid multiple peace negotiations across the Middle East. Israel is hashing out an agreement to deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the U.S. is in talks with Iran.
WHAT ISRAEL WANTS FROM AN IRAN PEACE DEAL: NO ENRICHMENT, MISSILE LIMITS AND STRICT ENFORCEMENT
Netanyahu said last week that Israel and the United States remain in “full coordination” as negotiations continue.
“We share common objectives, and the most important objective is the removal of the enriched material from Iran, all the enriched material, and the dismantling of Iran’s enrichment capabilities,” Netanyahu said at the opening of a security cabinet meeting.
On the nuclear issue, former Israeli National Security Advisor Yaakov Amidror said Israel’s position remains uncompromising.
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“Weaponized uranium must leave Iran,” Amidror said. “The Iranians must not be allowed to enrich uranium.”
Alongside the nuclear issue, Israeli analysts say Iran’s ballistic missile program has become equally central to Israel’s security concerns.
Politics
Big donors backed Harris in 2024. For 2028, they’re not so sure
WASHINGTON — As Kamala Harris eyes a possible 2028 presidential bid, there is little outward enthusiasm among her biggest 2024 backers to fund a repeat performance, adding to uncertainty about the former vice president’s prospects in what is sure to be a crowded primary field.
The Times reached out to more than two dozen top donors to the biggest pro-Harris super PAC in 2024. Several of them said they do not plan to support her should she choose to run, or declined to talk about her. Others did not respond.
“I don’t think it’s a helpful narrative [for 2028] to start with the 2024 hangover,” said one fundraiser for Harris’ 2024 campaign, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “There is an enormous appetite for new blood — something fresh, something that really represents the future, not the past.”
That narrative is poised to present Harris’ biggest challenge if she decides to run — particularly if it jeopardizes her ability to pull in crucial funding. Though few in the party want to criticize Harris, few appear inclined to endorse her, and conversations about her prospects often come down to one thing: Democrats’ anxiety about winning.
“She’s run, she’s lost, so the question’s going to be, is there somebody that gives Democratic voters more of a sense that they could win?” said Dick Harpootlian, a longtime South Carolina Democratic strategist. “That’s what all of us are looking for. We want to win in ‘28.”
The chatter among party elites appears at odds with recent polling in Harris’ favor, including in April’s Harvard Center for American Political Studies/Harris Poll, which showed Harris leading the Democratic field with support from 50% of Democrats.
The former vice president has also been met with enthusiasm from audiences in a series of recent speaking stops — including when she told a friendly crowd at a New York conference in April that she “might” run for president.
Harris remains undecided about whether to mount a run, according to a person familiar with her thinking, who said Friday she has been focused on boosting Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, meeting voters and delivering messages about the economy and affordability.
If she were to run, Harris would expect a crowded primary field to split donors and would be aware of the need to overcome the perception of skeptics, this person said — but noted that 2028 would afford a very different dynamic than the circumstances under which she took the nomination in 2024.
“There’s a bit of a ‘doth protest too much’ quality to some of these complaints about the idea of her running,” said the person close to her. “It may be a backhanded way of acknowledging that she’d be quite formidable if she decided to get in.”
Speculation about whether Harris would run again — and whether she should — has swirled since her truncated 2024 campaign ended in defeat to Donald Trump. Harris’ decision not to run for California governor in a wide-open race was broadly viewed as signaling presidential ambitions, and she reentered the public eye with the publication of a book about the 2024 campaign and an associated speaking tour.
Last month, Harris gave her strongest signal yet that she could seek the party’s nomination again, telling the Rev. Al Sharpton at a gathering of his civil rights organization in New York that she was “thinking about it.”
“I know what the job is and I know what it requires,” Harris said at the time.
Harris’ 2024 loss to Trump and failure to capture any battleground states — after entering the race late following President Biden’s exit — was bruising for Democrats. The defeat is lingering longer for some top donors than it did after Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016, making them extra wary, said one Democratic political consultant.
“Especially in the donor class, everyone feels burnt,” he said. “People just want to turn the page.”
The Times contacted top donors to Future Forward, the Democratic super PAC that spent the most to back Harris in the 2024 election. All the donors contacted gave at least $1 million and some acted as bundlers for the campaign, soliciting big checks from other donors in addition to their own contributions.
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, who gave $1 million to Future Forward in 2024, said he hoped to support a different Californian.
“Gavin is the candidate who can motivate both the left and the center,” Hastings told The Times, referring to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
A bundler for both Harris and Biden said it comes down to who can give Democrats the best chance to succeed.
“I think it is too early to pick a favorite in the 2028 race, but Kamala Harris will not be my candidate,” this person said. “I don’t think she would appeal to a swing voter, and we need swing voters to win.”
Others, including a few party leaders, deflected questions by citing a focus on this year’s midterm elections. Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who last year praised Newsom’s presidential prospects during a visit by the governor, said Tuesday that Democrats should be zeroed in on 2026.
“I’m not thinking about 2028, and if she were to call me I wouldn’t talk to her about it,” Clyburn told The Times when asked about Harris’ chances.
Enthusiasm for Harris and skepticism about her viability in 2028 aren’t mutually exclusive, said the former Harris fundraiser.
“A lot of people love her and also don’t think that she is the answer for 2028,” the fundraiser said.
The attitudes of the donor class and political elite may be at odds with those of regular Americans, particularly Black and working-class voters, the Democratic political consultant said. Few of the possible candidates have the potential to excite Black voters the way Harris does, he said.
If a candidate, whether Harris or someone else, makes a successful case that they can win, Black voters will be “strategic and optimistic enough” to rally around whoever it is, said Keneshia Grant, a Howard University political scientist.
But, she said, “I don’t think that they are going to take well to work by elites or the donor class to sideline Harris if there is no clear, reasonable, exciting, Obama-level, yes-we-can candidate instead of her.”
Harris speaks the Public Counsel Awards Dinner on April 29 in Beverly Hills.
(Frazer Harrison / Getty Images)
In recent weeks, Harris has spoken at a fundraiser in South Carolina, a party luncheon in Michigan and a dinner in Arkansas. On Thursday, she was in Nevada to rally Democrats ahead of the midterm primary.
She also joined other likely 2028 contenders at the Colorado Speaker Series in Denver and Sharpton’s conference, accepted an award from the nonprofit Public Counsel at a Los Angeles gala and addressed the National Women’s Law Center gala in Washington to a warm reception, as did Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
“She was inspiring, she was hopeful, she pushed back on Trump,” said Jay Parmley, head of the Democratic Party in South Carolina, where Harris spoke at a party-hosted fundraiser in Greenville on April 15.
South Carolina, a key primary state, could help unlock Harris’ path to the nomination. If Black voters there boosted her to a win, she could build early momentum.
But Parmley said he believed she would have to “get over” the hurdle of convincing voters that she can beat the GOP.
“I don’t think it’s a given she wins here without work,” Parmley said. “She’s going to have to really visit with voters and work just like everybody else.”
Times staff writer Ana Ceballos in Washington contributed to this report.
Politics
Video: The G.O.P. Rush To Break Up Majority-Black Districts
new video loaded: The G.O.P. Rush To Break Up Majority-Black Districts
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