It would be a big fat lie to say that the plans I was making were unconnected to the horrifying politics in the U.S. lately. Having found myself totally untethered to… well… anything much, why wouldn’t I want to get out of the country, or as close to it, as I could?
Well, the political landscape shifted a little this week.
The depressingly-resilient Republican party got the sort of result that I’ve been hoping to see (honestly my entire life, but certainly) since they traded subtext for text and went fully racist and murdercrazy a decade ago. The party that ran on calling entirely ethnic groups rapists and criminals and unamerican degenerates? The one that wanted to celebrate the holiday season with a livestreamed execution? Yeah, they finally got beat badly rather than barely.
Of course, the president is still the biggest asshole on the planet. We still have more guns than people. We still have more school shootings in a month than the rest of the world has in a year. We still let people go into debt forever because of medical costs. We still have the same minimum wage that we’ve had since before I had ANY degrees (those keeping score, I am going for #4 now).
So I am cautiously optimistic about the direction of the country compared to where I was a month ago, I still think I’ll take my talents elsewhere, thanks.
And elsewhere seems to potentially be the United Kingdom.
I’m getting a little traction in my inquiries about PhD sponsorship, and I’ll get more into that soon… but the U.S. is offering me work with no benefits or promise of a future, and Europe is excited to help me spend three years researching invented systems of folk belief in genre fiction and writing a goddamn novel.
All while living in a city that’s older than this whole country and with the ability to hop on a plane for less than $50 and be in (take your pick: Paris, Berlin, Budapest, Rome, etc…) in an hour or two.
So, yes, America might be aiming in a better direction now… but also, yes, I’ll be doing everything I can to go somewhere that’s already aimed in that direction and been moving toward it for a few decades, thanks.
