The Death of Our American Delusion, Or, Our Self-deportation Gets a Kickstart

Election night, 2025 started normally enough. We broke out some board games and cracked open a bottle of wine. Yes, we were a wee bit anxious about the election results, but we honestly thought we could trust our fellow citizens to make a moral, reasoned, decent choice — even if they didn’t agree with some of the Democratic platform.

We actually believed the fantasy (taught to us throughout our schooling) that U.S. citizens believed in those vaunted values of equality, decency, opportunity and diversity. But this election exposed and validated the worst of what heretofor was hidden under the slimy rocks of shame: That magats are willing (and gleeful) to strip women, minorities, gays and immigrants of 60 years of progress in civil rights, equal rights and due process.

By 8:00 p.m. a horrible, unthinkable, devastating reality had set in. Far from making a moral choice, a plurality of voters had chosen a 34-count-convicted felon, who bragged about grabbing women’s pussies and promised to eradicate every pet-eating brown person from the entire U.S.

And with that, we knew we were done with Amerika. The idea of another interminable four years with the deceitful, ignorant waste of skin was bad enough. But that people knew exactly what he was and put him in charge anyway. Well, we do not want to have anything to do with that kind of person.

We had enjoyed our experiences volunteering with the Oregon State Parks and the National Parks. But the joy evaporated with the realization that we would be “serving” many of the people we abhor. Nope. Clean up your own campsite, magat. Find your own amazing hiking spot. And we refuse to give any red state our money (because money is all they understand) so, travel within the U.S. suddenly became very limited.

Let me make our feelings entirely clear. Don’t tell me Trump voters can also be “good people.” Their actions are undeniably either blatantly sexist, racist, and nearly every other “ist”, or willfully ignorant. No excuses. No claiming “but I thought he’d be good for the economy” or “Kamala has no experience (that one is particularly laughable).” Nope, they’re culpable and implicated in every single thing that’s happening to our country right now. And no, I don’t want to hear your retorts. I hope their choice is personally devastating to them at some point, because I assure you it has already devastated millions of others. Yours truly among them, although the fallout we’ve experienced pales in comparison to the suffering and lives that have been lost due to the unending cruelty of the last seven months.

And please don’t preach to me about my attitude furthering polarization or being harsh or judgmental. That ship has sailed. I don’t consort with racists, misogynists and criminals. Or those who aid and abet them. The fact others are willing to normalize their behavior through “understanding” is, in my opinion, not only foolish but immoral given the damage being done to people around the world. Those actions SHOULD be judged harshly. How is your “understanding” working out for you and others who are oppressed so far?

So now that you know who you’re dealing with, I hope to leave politics behind — both physically and emotionally. Because like most immigrants we are seeking a better life. One where we aren’t angry, heartbroken and outraged every single day. And once I’m physically removed from the U.S. I’ll be at best a casual observer to the chaos. Yes, we hate leaving our friends behind and wish they would join us. We think many will as the danger and mayhem becomes impossible to ignore. But we won’t wait.

On November 6, after I stopped crying, I got to work.

The first step in immigrating is to figure out where you want to immigrate to. Since we have been studying Spanish for over two years, our search focused on a country where we could use it. We originally thought Costa Rica might be a good spot, having travelled there twice. It is beautiful, and the people are wonderful, but there is limited cultural diversity and living in Portland for the last several years has proven to us that we are urban people. We love the food, music, theatre and ethnic riches in Portland and wanted to find a similar environment.

Next up for consideration was Mexico. It would definitely be easy to get a visa and, at least in theory, we could drive over the border, which would be a great advantage for our beloved doggy Molly. The attractive idea of not having to load her into an airline cargo bay made me spend several weeks investigating the realities of Mexican residency. Ultimately, because we want to feel able to travel freely and explore our surroundings, it wasn’t the right fit. Many American ex-pats land in a resort-y kind of place and remain there, but that’s not what we’re looking for. Unfortunately, learning how to safely navigate Mexico by car seemed like an obstacle we wanted to avoid.

I shifted my focus to all things Iberia. Portugal was a contender, and we have friends who’ve been living there part-time for many years — but Portuguese isn’t Spanish, obviously. So . . . Spain.

I’ll begin taking you through the steps of our immigration in subsequent posts. I hope it helps those of you who are on the fence about escaping, but are daunted by the process (and it’s daunting — no question). Or those of you who just want some cheap entertainment reading about the dumb stuff we’re almost certain to do once we immigrate.

Going forward, I’ll be focusing on our future. You’re welcome along for the ride.