As an expat, you can vote as a resident in the last state you claimed residency before leaving the country. So, if you're headed out for a bit, establish residency in a swing state before you go, and remember to vote while you're out of country.
> The difference between an expat and an immigrant? Semantics
> “Immigrants are usually defined as people who have come to a different country in order to live there permanently, whereas expats move abroad for a limited amount of time or have not yet decided upon the length of their stay,” he says.
Now that you cite the BBC, there are quite sizable communities of UK citizens living in Spain after retirement (ie permanently, without a short or medium-term intention of going back) and they consistently refer to themselves as "expats".
It's never used that way in practice. No one calls Mexican seasonal agriculture workers in the US and Canada expats. No one calls Filipino maids and nannies in Singapore expats. No one calls Indian construction workers in Saudi Arabia expats. Regardless of the dictionary definition, expat is only used to refer to people coming from rich countries (US/UK/Singapore/etc.). Terms such as "migrant worker" are used for people coming from poor countries.
People from the wealthier first-world nations enjoy more international privileges — visa-on-arrival, stress-free travel, higher rates in currency exchange, dual citizenships, better societal structures and support for assimilation into foreign cultures.
Immigrants are either fleeing persecution or leaving their countries seeking a better life, requirements for visas and security checks, usually with not enough money, little privilege, and defacto distrust from foreign societal structures.
Relatively speaking, the typical expat can move around the world as they wish. Immigrants can't. So yes, immigrants, when they move, often do so, seeking to live elsewhere permanently.
Trump 2016 got reasonable republicans into his cabinet that prevented worse, his new team (anyone seen his old VP Mike Pence?) will be unchecked and unhinged.
Expats typically aren't immigrating permanently to a country, or even trying to establish new citizenship, only residing to the medium to long term, with the option of returning to their home country where they have citizenship. If they do renounce their citizenship, then they are just immigrants.
This feels like a very disingenuous way of participating in a democracy, and sounds like the kind of strategy that people would be up in arms over if MAGA voters were doing this.
Sure, I guess that's fine if you're okay with playing dirty because the other side did.
Personally that feels like a great way to make sure we ruin things, rather than just arguing that those GOP members helping gerrymander might ruin things.
US citizens are required to pay taxes on global income, regardless of where they live. The US is unique in this regard. Why would US citizens not continue to have the right to vote while out of country? Certainly, if they renounce their US citizenship (and hence, the ability to be taxed as a non citizen non resident), they lose their right to vote.
So you're in favor of exempting minors from federal taxation?
After all, their income is basically a rounding error economically and most don't make enough to pay net federal taxes so it might even be a net loss. There's no real reason to tax them unless it's some perverse Cartmanic exercise in making them accustomed to it.
How is it more disingenuous than any other way of participating, I wonder?
What difference does it make where you vote when you're an expat? You're still taxed and represented.
It would be a different matter if taxes were not involved, at least in my humble opinion. Other countries have revoked voting writes when you're no longer a tax paying citizen.
Well for one thing, the aim is for those leaving the country to change their last registered residence to an area where their vote may have more impact. They never lived there and have no ties to that jurisdiction. You don't see anything wrong with voters that have nothing to do with your area casting votes there on everything from federal elections to local elections and ballot measures?
To me this feels like the kind of strategy that leads to us removing voting rights for expats. If the rule is meant to allow expats to still participating in voting in their hometown, and people abuse that to impact elections they have no real business voting in, eventually that right will just be removed.
> If the rule is meant to allow expats to still participating in voting in their hometown
Is the rule meant to do that? I don't perceive that to be the case. What even is a hometown? What if someone doesn't have a hometown? What if you leave and never plan to return?
Decidedly expats do have real business in voting in elections otherwise this rule would have been removed. But it would be unconstitutional to tax citizens abroad upon depriving them the right to representation so this seems. Given there seems to be no appetite to disowning American expats this all seems moot.
I'm not aware of any other country with this sort of policy. It certainly seems to me that you get precisely what you ask for here, and there is no possiblity of abuse.
Lib migration really hasn't worked out well for Democrats. Texas is their white whale and a big reason they haven't won it is because they just change to another version of their same bubble and bring center-right people with them.
I live in a pretty red state, but there are only 9 or 10 states swingier than mine. Progressives I know are moving to solid blue states and feeling virtuous about it. Two of my friends moved to the west coast, and I can tell they're looking at me like if I can stand to live here, I must not feel as strongly about politics as they do.
This despite the fact that we're all old, white, and economically privileged enough that we're for all practical purposes immune to the awful policies that are being put in place.
The sad thing is, the idea that moving away is a constructive political act comes straight from Atlas Shrugged. It's right wing logic. Express your consumer preference, and through the magic of the invisible hand, that becomes political power. Making yourself happy is the only form of political engagement you need.
> the idea that moving away is a constructive political act comes straight from Atlas Shrugged
Heh. I read Atlas Shrugged in college, and at the time I liked it pretty well. I was hungry for a book about The Big Questions.
But now, I see the protagonists saying, "these leeches keep taking advantage of me! I'm going to move to a secret town in the middle of nowhere, and deny them my genius!" And it's the most teenaged, self-important thing I've ever heard.
Saw an interview in which she said her first two books were too subtle/abstract and not understood. So she wrote the third one in a way that even a... teenager could understand.
I would love to move to Galt's Gulch. Sadly, I'm not worthy enough to be selected for inclusion. It's an enticing idea of just moving away to live with all the other smart people. The trick is being smart enough to fit in.
As a progressive in a deep red state, there is a certain amount of exhaustion that comes with feeling like an outsider.
I like many things about where I live, and I've become practiced at getting along with people that I have deep disagreements with on politics.
But particularly this morning, I can sympathize with the urge to move to a place where I'm more likely to share a common set of values with the average person in the grocery store, and those values are more likely to be reflected by the institutions around me.
I wouldn't feel any virtue moving to a deep blue area, but I would feel a bit of relief.
we're for all practical purposes immune to the awful policies that are being put in place.
this is probably not going to pan out. Trump's become the figurehead for an organized and motivated movement to completely dismantle the administrative state. nobody's going to be immune to the effects of that. Project 2025 includes shutting down the weather service, even to the point of privatizing tornado warnings. he's also talked many times about replacing the entire income tax system with hefty tariffs, which literally hundreds of economists say would be a disastrous move.
they're also talking about a national abortion ban. you might indeed be old enough for that not to affect your life any more, but if you have extended family, it will affect someone you care about, guaranteed.
last but not least, Trump's stated goal of mass deportation would require intense surveillance, broad leeway for law enforcement agencies, and drastically reduced civil liberties protections. once you've got that, you can target a lot of people. a site like Twitter is going to have a lot of data about political inclinations, and cultural factors like sexuality or race that can get you targeted politically.
the real problem that got Trump in office was normalcy bias. what we're dealing with is so bad that if you tell people who don't already know, they assume you're exaggerating.
> the real problem that got Trump in office was normalcy bias. what we're dealing with is so bad that if you tell people who don't already know, they assume you're exaggerating.
This is understated IMO. In almost every other democracy in the world, 1% of the mess that comes out of Trump's mouth would deem him utterly unelectable on account of how crazy he sounds. The US seems to lap it up though.
This is true, and it's probably because he now operates in an altered context — the narrative of persecution, especially by those perceived to be 'elite'. Without that, all Americans would see through his nonsense just as the inhabitants of democracies elsewhere do.
His opponents have done a very bad job of not making it look like everyone's simply biased and out to get him, and he's capitalised on that.
> they're also talking about a national abortion ban. you might indeed be old enough for that not to affect your life any more, but if you have extended family, it will affect someone you care about, guaranteed
I do care about the people who will be affected. But it won't be people in my social class.
There's a lot of hypocrisy built into the social conservative mentality. I've seen the world they want to go back to, and it was never about eliminating, say, abortion. Progressives think that right wingers want to eradicate abortion the way progressives want to eliminate malaria and poverty. There are a few extremists who do, yes. But most right wing people just want to institute social rules that stigmatize abortion. They want people who get abortions to be discreet about it, and they want to shame and punish anybody who gets caught. They want abortions to be a crime for the poor and a scandal for the rich. That's all they want. If they get that, they don't care how many abortions people get.
My friends are sophisticated enough and have enough resources that they would be able to get an abortion if they needed one. They would find an anonymous way to get a pregnancy test. They would not share knowledge of their pregnancy with anyone. They would schedule a holiday in an abortion-friendly place and Instagram every step of it. In this way, they would respect the taboo, and that's all that most right wing people care about. Rich people being able to break the rules is very much part of the plan.
The burden of punishment will fall on people who weren't wealthy or sophisticated enough to navigate this hypocrisy, or who belong to disfavored groups (racial minorities, etc.) who are specifically targeted for enforcement.
Think of how Alan Turing was punished for homosexuality. The nature of his sexual behavior was obvious to the police, but he was not going to be punished for it. All he had to do was deny it. Show respect for the taboo. But he didn't deny it, he didn't participate in the hypocrisy, so he was punished.
> last but not least, Trump's stated goal of mass deportation would require intense surveillance
You're thinking like a progressive technocrat. You're thinking, how would I institute a fair, efficient, and effective program of mass deportation? Trump doesn't care how many people he deports, or even whether he deports the right people. He's not going to be surveilling rich white people to catch people like Elon Musk who overstay their visa. Any mass deportations will be like his wall: a half-assed, purely symbolic stunt that makes his supporters happy and confuses progressives because of the blatant lack of ambition to accomplish anything.
Again, the victims will be people that right wingers consider fair game because of their economic status and their skin color.
Trump won the popular vote this time. The swing states were still where all the action was, but I hope this spells the end of the Democratic Party blaming the electoral college for their losses. This time, they just screwed this race up badly.
This was not just a screwed up race. The far left and identity politics have made the democratic party unelectable and they'll continue to do so until a strong leader can evict them from the party.
I really hope this clear loss without the excuse of the electoral college leads to a total reformation into a sane party. I just wish that had happened to republicans first.
Take all the issue with prosecutorial discretion that you want, but don't pretend that an adjustment in the misdemeanor/felony threshold by $450 means theft is no longer a crime.
> This was not just a screwed up race. The far left and identity politics have made the democratic party unelectable and they'll continue to do so until a strong leader can evict them from the party.
This is a really interesting analysis that differs greatly from how I'm seeing it - in particular your characterization of the democrats as "far left." What policies of theirs would you describe as "far left?" Specifically ones that don't have to do with identity politics, since you categorized that as something else.
In my opinion, leftists in the USA are effectively disenfranchised and there's votes on the table for a leftist voting bloc. The democrats this election turned hard right (immigration, law enforcement, Israel weapon sales, etc), which is a strategy that has never really worked for them but remains their favorite thing to continually try. If someone didn't want immigration, why would they vote for the candidate that's light on immigration when they could vote for the guy promising to deport (somehow) millions?
I saw another interesting chart that showed that something like 4% of registered republicans voted for Biden and 3% for Kamala. Capturing right wing votes seems to be a fools errand for the Democrats that they simply won't give up. Meanwhile there's a whole entire political spectrum unrepresented in the USA - and it's not like there's no historical precedence for demonstrable popularity of leftist candidates, one of the most popular and consistently reelected senators is an out and out socialist.
I agree that in general, democrats are not far left, and it's a small minority of the party. But democrats are beholden to them, and can't bring themselves to disavow and condemn their fringes.
> The democrats this election turned hard right (immigration
After 3.5 years of scolding everyone for being racist for being against uncontrolled immigration, they tried to pass a weak compromise bill that acknowledges the problem, while continuing to advocate allowing a "first come first serve" border policy to the tune of thousands of people a week. That failed, then after years of saying their hands were tied, suddenly decide that they actually can do something, a few months before the election.
> If someone didn't want immigration, why would they vote for the candidate that's light on immigration when they could vote for the guy promising to deport (somehow) millions?
It's clearly not a binary issue. That's exactly why Democrats need to reform themselves into a party of sanity, instead of e.g. this: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-reopens-asylum-a.... The idea that a local domestic violence issue becomes a case for asylum is insane on so many levels.
> law enforcement
Again, too little too late, and after too much scolding about racism.
> Israel weapon sales
I won't comment on Israel "weapon sales" specifically, that is missing the big picture. I'll just give a few perspectives on how I reached the conclusion I posted about democrats.
Biden's diplomacy in the middle east has been just totally pathetic. Every week for months we got the headline "Cease fire coming tomorrow - Biden". Biden's desperation makes it crystal clear to both sides that he has zero leverage and can be ignored. And why is he so desperate? Because he has to entertain the demands of the far left of the democratic voter base.
More generally, this is an issue where Democrats have allowed their weird obsession with colonialism to cloud their judgement. At the end of the day, the middle east is almost exclusively theocratic dictatorships that have ethnically cleansed their populations of jews over the last 50-100 years, or failed states controlled by Iranian proxy militaries. And then there's Israel, a secular democracy (for now) with a 20% Arab population, including Arab elected officials.
It's very distressing seeing college students in Iran protesting at very real risk to their lives and freedoms against the very same forces that college students in the US are protesting (effectively, wittingly or not) in support of.
I remember watching the raw unfiltered video from Oct 7 and thinking this was the clearest casus belli for a total war for a regime change and occupation since WWII. Hell, even WWI and WWII still did not have such a clear singular provocation. Yet, democrats find themselves muddled and confused about the issue. Not at first, but democrats proved themselves beholden to their fringe lunatics on this issue.
Supporting relatively better theocratic democracy is how the United States ended up justifying weapon sales to Iran and Pakistan. Are we holding Israel to the standards of America, or to the standards of their reprehensible peers? Are we looking at this from a flawed relativist standpoint, or are we willing to identify flaws before they spiral out of hand?
This feels like something we should clear up before the Gaza death toll surpasses Bangladesh. Alternatively, America can also admit that we never cared in the first place and announce that we're open for business to any sufficiently rich nationalists. Israel represents the point at which America can either bring down the hammer or double down hoping this time is different than the other nationalist theocracies that imported US weapons under the premise of fighting terrorism.
Just to clarify your belief that democrats are kowtowing to leftist positions, I as a fringe lunatic that don't like how Israel bombs civilians, don't feel represented by the party, nor apparently do the people of Dearborn that Kamala catastrophically lost yet Biden won 80% of the vote in.
I think it is perhaps both inaccurate and, at this point, a trope, to blame the failures of the US democratic party on IdPol or “wokeness” or DEI/CRT, etc.
This is a red herring, and ultimately thinking it had any real effect on the race (beyond being used as fodder for mocking them) is a dangerous distraction.
Despite the fact that the president doesn’t have that many short term economic levers that aren’t destructive/wasteful, the fact that most USians have worse economic circumstances now than they did four years ago is probably the main driver.
The big irony of this is that a lot of it is probably the lingering echoes of the massive economic damage from the pandemic, most of which was not only not mitigated, but massively accelerated by Trump’s policies during the main sequence of same.
I disagree. Pointing to some of the more extreme beliefs held by the left on those topics has been very effective in pushing people away. My wife, active on Chinese social media, forwards me a lot of indignant videos about some of the things the left does. Ignoring the fact that many otherwise moderate people really dislike {IdPol or “wokeness” or DEI/CRT} is a huge factor in the election results.
> Trump's policies as well as America's general inability to follow rules imposed on them by government (many Americans ignored all covid rules), as well as the inability of American government to actually enforce many COVID rules, is the NUMBER ONE reason why the United States is currently dominating the world economy compared to countries that took stricter approaches to COVID.
You keep telling yourself that but those disastrous Covid policies did nothing to stop Covid. Instead it fucked kids, old people, businesses and communities all around the country. It was a massive abuse of government power.
A large part of this election is a result of those idiotic mitigations.
I completely agree with you. Not sure which part of my post made you think I support lockdowns. I don't. And that's my point. GOP governors did not lock down, and even in blue states where they did, many Americans ignored them.
they will purge the token hires to show a return to "normalcy" and thats it. Young grassroot talents will be ignored or marginalized as always. DNC is such a small club, even Gavin Newsom, the most "presentable" dem is an outsider. He left out some snarky remarks on how "the machine" works on pod save america podcast.
No, the purges will take out the entire senior leadership of the Democratic Party. You need to stop thinking like it’s 2020 and start thinking like it’s 1932.
Do we know that yet? Last I checked, there were still millions of votes not counted. (California alone still has enough to change it, if they all went one way.)
They just aren’t in areas that would swing the overall electoral vote, so the people doing the math can call the race overall.
He's up by almost 5 million votes. There are enough votes outstanding to flip the race, but it seems unlikely that they'll break Democrat hard enough to make up the difference.
I’m still on team end the EC. It really does cause states like California to have people shrug thinking their vote doesn’t matter. Moving to popular would end swing states period. Elections shouldn’t be decided by a couple states that may flip flop. Campaigns spend ridiculous money in only those places and ignore everywhere else.
One (of many) arguments against it: We were promised the costs of the indirection-layer of sober statesmen would provide a feature, protecting against a patently unqualified demagogue. The feature broke spectacularly.
That said, if I had a magic-genie wish between (A) popular vote for President and (B) replacing all our plurality-voting schemes with one of the many better systems, I would choose the latter.
the person just elected promised to rig every election
Quote, please?
I believe you're referring to what Trump said about in the future, New Yorkers won't have to vote.
That's not saying they won't be allowed to vote. It's saying that the folks who think they need to vote to defend their way of life won't feel that way anymore.
Of course, whether those folks are right, or whether Trump really would do anything about it, are different questions. But in any case, it's nothing like the widely-reported statement that Trump will (somehow, through undescribed FUD) put an end to elections.
I may be slaughtered here for saying so, but I can't see J6 as a "coup".
There's too much of an underpants gnome quality, with no clear path leading from "unruly mob pushed its way into the Capitol" to "Trump is inaugurated with the acceptance of (at least a majority of) the country".
It follows much more logically if we model it as an irrational rioting mob. This doesn't make it right, but it moves the suspicion from "subverting democracy" to (simply?) inciting a riot.
It was an irrational rioting mob sent by Trump and allowed to continue for hours while he sat on his rear hoping they would be successful in forceably preventing the transfer of power. He and his co-conspirators knew exactly what they were doing. The insurrectionists that he told to stand back and stand by implemented stack formations to breach the capitol.
>It's saying that the folks who think they need to vote to defend their way of life won't feel that way anymore.
Why do folks think that now? Propaganda and lies from politicians.
What would need to happen in order for them to NOT feel that way?
The eradication of the Dems and the roughly half the voters that support them, and/or the further rigging of elections to ensure the half of Americans they disagree with are disenfranchised and/or the further entrenchment of the courts in an ideology only shared by half the country with mechanisms to prevent the 'left' from being able to take it back.
To pretend that statement is anything but directly threatening the pillars of democracy is absurd.
Even trumps own explanation shows the above to be true:
>Trump: So with respect to like a statement like I made that statement is very simple. I said, vote for me. You're not going to have to do it ever again. It's true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group. They don't vote, and I'm explaining that to them: You never vote — this time, vote. I'll straighten out the country. You won't have to vote anymore. I won't need your vote. You can go back.
Emphasis on:
>I'll straighten out the country. You won't have to vote anymore. I won't need your vote. You can go back.
Why wouldn't he need the vote. What changes could he make that would result in that outcome that are democratic?
Why do you vote now? I guess one reason is just that it's your civic duty. But also, I think that a big reason for voting is defensive, to ensure that the other voters aren't screwing you first; or at least to make sure that your way of life isn't threatened. Isn't this exactly what "get out the vote" efforts are trying to do, convince potential voters that there's a threat that they need to address by casting their vote? So people vote for gay rights, or for self-defense rights, or for "pro choice" rights, etc.
So if you've preemptively had some putative Defender Of The Faith like Trump memorialize your values in legislation, then you've got relatively less fear driving you to vote defensively.
> So people vote for gay rights, or for self-defense rights, or for "pro choice" rights, etc.
Exactly! That whole paragraph was well stated.
>So if you've preemptively had some putative Defender Of The Faith like Trump memorialize your values in legislation, then you've got relatively less fear driving you to vote defensively.
"memorialize" is a interesting word choice because that covers over the entire "devil is in the details". There is virtually no democratic way to enshrine a set of values in law that can't be overturned by those that disagree, as the supreme court has shown in the decisions on Right of Privacy, Roe v Wade and other landmark legislation and precedence that underpinned American law for decades.
Those were overturned because a concerted and united effort by conservative groups to swing courts to the right by voting in politicians that agreed with those end goals to nominate and select justices that would agree with their values and then immediately began a concerted effort to push cases bringing those laws and precedences they disagree with to the supreme court.
That shift all went back to voting (and voter suppression and gerrymandering but I digress) and they would in a democracy only be able to maintain this shifted balance in the courts and in the government by continuing to vote and win. This was the group Trump was talking to and telling them they wouldn't need to vote anymore. There is no squaring that circle.
While the media has lied about a lot of shit he says and taken it out of context, This statement alone and its anti-democratic meaning would have destroyed any candidates viability in the decades before Trump... That it hasn't shows that its no longer about values or morals, its about sides and identities now.
Thanks. So it was the statement I referred to, and as you'll see in my explanation above, this is nothing at all like saying that people won't be able to vote.
Saying "you won't need to vote because things will be fixed" is absolutely nothing like saying "you won't be allowed to vote anymore".
No one is saying you won't be allowed to vote. Russia has elections and people vote. The election is just "fixed" so the votes don't matter. I also have no reason to give this a charitable interpretation but hey, I hope you're right. You aren't but I hope you are.
I'm speaking to the roughly 49% of Americans (and ??% of HN readers) who are unhappy with the outcome. And if that's not you, that's OK; just keep scrolling.
