No, It's Not Unpatriotic to Leave the United States
There's actually nothing more American than moving to another country
People often ask, "What was the moment you knew you wanted to leave the United States for Italy?"
This is impossible to answer because there wasn't just one thing. There were many significant moments that served as turning points, which I outlined in my essay, The Way We Live in the United States is Not Normal.1
There was chronic stress, mass shootings, out-of-control cost of living, and difficulty in finding community because everyone was working all the time or recovering from that overwork. But something I haven't delved into much is how much I wanted to escape the toxic discourse, particularly the binary, all-or-nothing thinking that dominates American culture.
In this paradigm, there is no room for good-faith disagreement because people are so blinded by their own beliefs and views that they can't consider that a reasonable person could come to a different conclusion.
I thought of this after reading a recent Atlantic piece by George Packer with the headline Be a Patriot: Fleeing America before you are threatened is a lot like obeying in advance.2
In his essay, Packer invokes inflammatory military language to attack three Yale professors who have relocated to the University of Toronto. Their move is akin to "cutting and running" and "deserting their posts," Packer claims.
This group includes Timothy Snyder, who has written extensively on authoritarianism (I highly recommend his book, On Tyranny) and has cast Trump squarely in the authoritarian camp. In addition to his books, he writes here on Substack.3 Living in Toronto will obviously not impact his ability to publish books or reach an American audience.
"Either you make the exact choice or believe exactly what I believe or you are bad," is the stunted logic that makes meaningful debate in the US virtually impossible. After all, Packer is a serious journalist who has done important work, and he can't even look at people who have made a reasonable personal decision he hasn’t chosen for himself without vilifying them.
After all, why is Snyder obligated to stay in a country where it's reasonable to believe that he could be harassed, or worse, by the government for the work he is doing?
As we see academic institutions come under attack, isn't it better that he is in a place where he can do his work without fear of retribution against him and his family?
"Trump's greatest weapon is his power to convince Americans that their country isn't worth saving," Packer writes. "Some public intellectuals already seem persuaded."
There is zero evidence to support this incendiary statement.
In fact, I don’t think I know a single person who has been convinced of this, including the Americans I know who live in Italy. There is also nothing to suggest that the academics who moved to Canada believe this; in fact there is a ton of evidence to the contrary.
Packer is using the fact that people have moved as proof that they don't care about the future of the US, even though some of the people he singled out have dedicated their writing to helping Americans.
It reminded me of some of the responses I got when I announced my move to Italy in late 2023. I was informed that it was wrong of me to leave—that I should "stay and fight" the way my critics allegedly were. I say allegedly because they never provided any evidence they were doing anything more than trolling people online. They also didn't stop to wonder if perhaps I was able to do my part while living abroad since I am, after all, a writer who can do her work anywhere.
The "stay and fight" contingent seems unaware that the Internet exists, which means there is plenty that people living in other countries can do to stay involved in the American project: write, donate, teach online, vote, organize, and so on.
For those of us who didn’t support the Iraq war, the “you aren’t patriotic” attack is familiar. Packer supported the war but apparently didn’t gain enough humility from his catastrophically terrible judgment to be less quick to judge people drawing different conclusions during difficult times in US.
Instead, here he is saying you are a traitor (aka not a patriot) for moving to another country while the US is in distress. He says he feels "betrayed" by people making a different decision than he has about where to live during this era.
This "you are with us or against us" mentality never seems to die, no matter how many times it leads to dangerous groupthink with consistently terrible results.
In addition to trying to shame the academics who have relocated to Canada, Packer casts a judgmental glare toward people investigating their ancestry to gain citizenship in another country or who have just decided life in the US is too hard and have moved to another country.
Packer seems oblivious to the idea that there are people who have moved abroad because the US has become an impossible place to live on a million different fronts, completely unrelated to Donald Trump's second presidency.
There's also the fact that, according to Packer's logic, most Americans are descendants of "traitors." The only people who are not are those who are Indigenous or descendants of enslaved people.
Everyone else is in the US because they, or someone in their family, decided to leave their birth country for a better life. I've never thought of my Irish or Austro-Hungarian relatives as "traitors," and I can't imagine many other Americans regard their ancestors as such.
If we are being totally honest, there is nothing more American than moving to another country for a different life.
This is the choice I made, and yet I feel very committed to the future of the US, and not just because I moved to a region that is directly affected by what is happening in the White House. The US is the country of my birth, and while I don't like it much right now, I still very much love it and care about what happens there. I care about the people who live there, and I recognize that the world needs a stable United States.
Everyone is on their own journey and should make the decisions that are best for them and their families. People with major megaphones should be more careful about demonizing people who have made different calculations and decisions than they have and resist the reflexive urge to believe there is only one way to behave in a crisis.
In a time when judgment seems to overrule curiosity, we should try to avoid the impulse to turn on each other for a difference of opinion or life choice. The nuanced analysis will bring us closer to real solutions; binary all-or-nothing thinking will just divide us.
Related
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/dont-flee-just-yet/682350/
Yes, I was accused of being unpatriotic for living abroad when Bush was elected and again when we went to war against Iraq because we needed a scapegoat after 9-11.
Same ole, same ole.
I am a citizen of the world, not a blind nationalist. I care about America because my children and grandchildren live there, and my belief that all countries are interrelated regardless of arbitrary borders on maps.
Vote with your feet.
Snyder has the insular mindset which is underpinned with the American exceptionalism. I think he has a very limited point of view and is not aware that we are an empire in decline made more rapid and dramatic by trump. I think they all protest too much.
Kristen, I have been away from the States since early January. What has struck me is the leisurely pace of just about everything. Day after day, just outside my door here in Córdoba, there are families walking hand in hand, teenagers walking arm in arm, young adults greeting each other with multiple cheek kisses and hanging out in groups of 9-15 for several hours, yakking away. People just don't do that in the US anymore. I buy a baguette here for 65 cents every day.
Our country has the best PR in the world which is our entertainment industry. They sell a version of the US that does not exist anymore. The truth is our nation is run by money and everything is in obeisance to it. Congress is the PR branch of the military/industrial complex.
Well, that's enough, but anyway, I love your writing and more importantly, your thinking and your action taking. Very impressive and inspiring.