It is a truism of modern politics that the only people who leave a stable democracy for political reasons are tax exiles or draft-age men during a war. The rest of us, faced with a candidate we despise, might threaten and grumble, or joke about “going to Canada”, but ultimately we stay put. Even if we did have somewhere else to go, for those with the resources to actually do it, the stakes are never quite high enough.
Or at least, that has been the assumption since the end of the last world war. After Hillary Clinton’s de facto ascendancy to the Democratic nomination this week, we enter the final phase of the election and with it, a possible challenge to that complacency: Donald Trump.
In a recent poll conducted for the Hill, 28% of those surveyed said they would consider leaving the country if Trump was president, an instinct shared by many looking on from abroad. In the last few weeks, more than one friend in Britain has emailed to ask me: “What will you do if Trump gets in?”, and it’s not a rhetorical question. One even added “be honest”, as if the possibility of staying in the US under Trump, when I have a perfectly good home elsewhere, would represent a shameful collusion with fascism.
There are two reasons to leave a country when the political climate changes: out of protest and, more realistically, in the interests of self-preservation. The latter brings to mind analogies with 1930s Germany, a too-easily applied parallel in this election, given the ongoing suspicion that Trump is all mouth and no trousers. Still, no one wants to be the bourgeois German, looking on in horror but never quite reaching a tipping point. As Adam Gopnik wrote so persuasively in the New Yorker last month, Trump is not Hitler - “well, of course he isn’t. But then Hitler wasn’t Hitler – until he was.”
The question then becomes: could one continue paying taxes and participating in civic life – or worse, actively benefiting from a Trump presidency, given his racist assault on American democracy? That is the cool, morally responsible consideration.
The more visceral response is: run for cover. When I look at Trump, tossing out whatever threats come to mind, ignorant, silly, hot-headed and vain, what I think is this: if this guy becomes president, he’s going to get us all killed. His lack of interest in the social codes that keep us civil is redolent not just of a demagogue but a sociopath.
And yet ripping up my life to move would be such a tremendous hassle. Rationalizations pile up. In reality, how bad could it be? Let’s not forget that, while Ted Cruz was still in the race, it was often said of the two men that Cruz was the worst, because his racism was more coded and he was much more hardline on, for example, abortion. At least Trump is notionally in favor of the welfare state, right? And is the liberal’s abhorrence of Trump itself entirely defensible? Do we hate him because he’s racist or because he’s racist and a vulgarian?
Besides, how much power does the president actually have? I mean, George W Bush was clueless and America survived. (Those in Syria and Iraq might have a different assessment of his legacy.) But it’s only for four years, during which time Trump would be so appalling that the Democrats would get back in in 2020 and 10 years from now, we’d all look back on this as an unfortunate historical blip, like Prohibition and low-rise skinny jeans.
None of these arguments are adequate. Even if 90% of what Trump articulates is endorsed, privately, by a large number of Republican politicians, saying it out loud radically changes the air in the room, legitimizing racist taboos and giving permission to those who would voice or act on them. In a job which runs almost entirely on the ability to achieve results through diplomacy, the only-four-years argument falls apart, too.
And so one finds oneself here, in the strange position of looking back somewhat indulgently on the “lesser” offensiveness of George W Bush, under the pain of whose presidency, threatening to leave the US was considered a rather jolly and vainglorious overreaction. In 2001, when Alec Baldwin and a bunch of other famous liberals made noises about quitting the country, they were roundly mocked, not just for failing to act, but for the egotism of thinking it might make a difference.
In Britain, the history of political exile is even more risible, characterized by Michael Caine storming out in the 1970s in protest against Labour tax policies, coming back under Thatcher and only staying put when Labour got back in because “Tony Blair promised me personally that he wouldn’t put tax up”. Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for Andrew Lloyd-Webber to make good on his promise to bugger off after John Major left office.
All of these examples, some more whimsical than others, seem like the flippant gestures of the phenomenally wealthy, rather than the collective expression of a people under threat. The prospect of a Trump presidency is in a different category, one that makes the question of what action to take relevant to a much larger number of people.
There may have been some joking about exile over the last few months – by the Canadians, Jon Stewart and Lena Dunham among others – but somewhere in there everyone stopped laughing. The only person left with a silly grin on his face is Trump himself, urging his longtime adversary Rosie O’Donnell to make good on speculations she might leave. (“We’ll get rid of Rosie?” said Trump on a radio show recently, zeroing in on what would seem like an inadequate enemy for would-be president of the free world. “Oh, I love it.”)
And so – what? Back to a Britain that is potentially about to leave the EU? Time to dig out Grandma’s Irish birth certificate, or find some long-lost Norwegian heritage? A decision of this magnitude is too hard to make hypothetically, which is why all threats to leave the US are empty until the time comes. Meanwhile, we look at the polls and say it won’t come to that, a conviction that falls somewhere between analysis and liturgy. It won’t come to that, it won’t come to that.
