(obviously it privileged to think everyone can just pull up stakes and move to Italy, but it’s equally naive to think we can magically turn the us into a first world country by voting harder)
I have a trans friend who lives in Italy and they are very very right leaning and transphobic over there. The friend herself spouts some pretty conservative takes every so often, like when she told my wife, who doesn’t have a job, that she thinks those without jobs don’t deserve housing or health care… Which was especially insulting because we’d been letting her stay with us for free as well.
Point is, I don’t think Americans escaping to Italy makes sense
I remember watching an Anthony Bourdain episode of him going to Rome. the entire episode was about how much everyone there still loved Mussolini and how big a problem it was.
It’s also a weird choice to be moving to a country with an even more disintegrated infrastructure and a literal neo-fascist government. What are the problems with the US way of life that they don’t like?
I just skimmed through the article, but it reduces to being that the two Italian people she mentioned are more laid back and have more friends. Plus less medical and college debt.
But, yeah. Even by that criterion, there are many other countries that would be a better choice.
Honestly, I’d pick
or 
. With the former, no language barrier and Scotland is a bit more laid back. As for the latter, France at least has done some pretty based things like topple their monarchy and the 1968 protests.Plus, a good cheat code to use against CHUDs in Europe is saying “what are we, a bunch of dumb Americans?” any time they do something CHUDDy (but in France you might want to say “Brits” instead for the extra sting.)
In my experience French people can often be far more racist than Americans they just know how to express it in more progressive language
I think we all had this discourse when the not just bikes guy said that america will literally never solve its transit problems and become a society based on anything other than private car ownership, so the only thing you can do if you want to live in a society with decent bike & transit infrastructure in your lifetime is move somewhere else. Pretty sure the struggle session just culminated in something like “obviously this is correct but we have to believe change is possible in the imperial core or what’s the fuckin point”
People bring up the fact you have to be privileged to move other places like this but there are other reasons too. Leaving the country you grew up in, even for another western country, is a big thing. It means you probably won’t be able to see family and friends more than once every five years. It means the cultural context you grew up in and are natively fluent in, despite being a steaming pile, is not available to you when navigating social situations. Hell, most americans with the ability & inclination won’t even leave america to go to canada, despite no real increase in travel times and an essentially identical culture except a bit less overwhelmingly right wing and with a little brother complex.
Even the liberals are doing the “Just move to Europe, bro” meme as if that isn’t basically impossible for the majority of people. Like, if I could fuck off to Scotland, I would have done so as soon as I graduated high school.
Oh yeah, and I have to pay taxes to the US even if I’m not living there because of citizenship-based taxation. It’s not enough for the bourgeoisie to tell me to go away if I ever point certain things out, but they will still get a cut of my paycheck even if I do.
Oh yeah, and I have to pay taxes to the US even if I’m not living there because of citizenship-based taxation.
I’m fairly certain the US has taxation treaties with a number of countries including the UK that prevent you paying tax to the US while living there so long as you don’t make more than something like $200k a year.
no they don’t think you should vote they think you should buy italy
