A Brief Moment In Cranky: People Who Threaten To Emigrate

Hitting the Road

In Q1 2005, I put my family of 3.5 (my wife was pregnant with what became our youngest) on a plane for a vacation to New Zealand. We spent weeks driving up and down the North and South Islands in a rented car, avoiding organized tour groups, walking on glaciers, eating like locals, visiting sheep and wool festivals (my wife knits), and learning as much about the Maori heritage and history as possible. Vacations for me are usually just another form of work, because that's just how I'm wired, and I really felt like we learned a ton about the place. I wound up writing a small book about it, punctuated with photographs, and had a dangerous epiphany behind a waterfall, alone and significantly off any hiking path, near sunset in an area near where there's an active volcano. It was the best vacation of my life, and Wellington may be the nicest city that I've ever visited.

I also took several job interviews while there, because I was thinking very hard about leaving the United States. Which, at the time, no one but my wife knew, though I suspect many of our friends and family would not have been very surprised by.

In the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, I had spent my nights and weekends, for nearly six months, talking to strangers in Nevada. (California, where I lived at the time, was never in play, and Reno is just four hours from the Bay Area, so it was a feasible drive and dial.) By the time I was done, we had donated thousands to the Kerry campaign, and I had talked to thousands of people. I wasn't blind to the idea that my candidate could lose. Disinterring an incumbent during wartime is very low in historical precedent, and most of the nation hadn't soured on the Bush Administration (yet, as the approval ratings showed in the second term). 

Bush wound up carrying Nevada by 2 percentage points, or about 20,000 votes, winning five delegates. The state did not matter, in the grand scale of things, because Bush's win in the electoral college was by 35 votes. I was profoundly depressed by the turn in events, not the least of which was the decision of the Kerry campaign to hold back a significant amount of funds for post-election legal challenges that never came. I felt, at the time, like neither of the parties had served my interests, and questioned the wisdom of raising my family under their control. We were still young enough to be attractive emigres, and didn't own a house. I do Internet advertising for a living, which you can theoretically do from anywhere, and I even did a little work for my start up at the time while I was there. 

So why didn't we become Kiwis? Well, you go back in time on the Internet when you go to different countries, and that's not always fun or lucrative. New Zealand is lovely, but most of the nation rolls up the sidewalks at 8pm, and I tend to night work and life. Not seeing our parents and siblings outside of a computer screen, and not having our kids interact in real life with their cousins, was too much. We wound up moving back to the East Coast for a fresh job a couple of years later, bought a home and set down our roots, and made our peace that while our country was far from perfect, it was still the best place for us.

The reason why I bring this all up is in answer to everyone in my social feed who feels compelled to discuss emigration every time the election cycle turns. To these folks, I'd like to ask the following questions.

1) Have you donated time or money or both to the campaign that would prevent you from wanting to move, or does your threat end at, well, actual effort?

2) Do you really know anything about the country that you'd like to go to? 

For most of the Bush Administration, Canada was led by a party of similar conservative bent. Most other nations limit immigration from older individuals, or those without attractive and employable skills. For those of the other bent, most other nations are far more controlling on matters like healthcare and gun ownership. And finally...

3) Are you ready to wash your hands of everyone that you are leaving behind? 

I don't regret the time I spent walking, calling and talking to Nevada. It gave me profound insights into the human spirit, made me more charitable towards those who do not agree with me, and was a transformative and educational experience. Had the job interviews and Web climate in New Zealand been better, maybe we would have stayed, and had similar growth. 

But what I wouldn't do then, and won't do now, is treat my word as worthless, and make idle threats. As a marketing and advertising consultant, and as someone who chooses to make decisions for the benefit of my long-term brand, my word is bond. I will do what I say. And I won't say something unless I'm very prepared to do it.

If you oppose a candidate, work to defeat that candidate. If you can't stay in a country in the event of their ascension to power, make plans to leave.

Preferably with a measure of class and decorum. Especially to everyone in your social circle who chooses to stay.

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