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Comment by forgotoldacc | Hacker News Reader

As a person who left the US almost 9 years ago (part of my reason was I saw the writing on the wall and knew a big political mess was coming. Part was similar to you with wanting good health care), one thing that's bothering me about a lot of the nü-emigrants from the US is they're bringing the politics with them that they're claiming to escape from. I've been feeling American politics creep more and more into my life here despite thinking I escaped them nearly a decade ago, and it's due to more Americans moving abroad and not really adapting to the mindset of their new home.

There are some good people who leave out there. But it's feeling like the world is becoming more and more uniform with this bizarre political worship and cult of personality all centered on America.

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I strongly doubt those immigrants are causing any of that, rather than the enormous online reach of Tate et. al alt-right along with Russia-backed campaigns, and now Musk over the last decade. Those have left a large impact even in countries with zero American immigrants to speak of. That's a much more likely cause.

English speakers keep pinning the blame solely on Russia. Russia has some degree of influence and that's undeniable. But the word of mouth bizarre chatter online and in real life is very organic. Until people accept that their own culture has problems, nothing will change. Pinning the blame on some other culture that they don't like and blaming them for everything has a long history but it never fixes the problem.

Go to some bars or even random discord servers and you'll quickly find that it's not Russians trying to proselytize everyone with their political beliefs. They're actual people.

And I'm not only talking about the right wing stuff that Russia does promote. There are bizarre political brainworms leaking out of America in many political directions.

When this discussion comes up I always like to remember that the founding fathers also fled England to escape political turmoil.

A bit like the guy that “always seems to run into dysfunctional teams”, that should give food for thought.

The difference is that always being on a dysfunctional team is caused by people who can’t judge the company before they work there or make the team dysfunctional. Either way, they had some amount of power over their own situation.

We are at a third scenario, the second law of thermodynamics, everything goes to shit over time including teams and countries.

When that happens it’s usually time to leave. It often happens when the company is acquired like the US has been bought by President Musk with his useful idiot puppet.

I’m 50 and I’ve never seen anyone - Republican or Democrat - try to wreck the US either domestically or internationally like President Musk has.

Don’t get me wrong, even at retirement I would be hedging my bets and should be able to keep my by then paid off condo in the US and rent in another country and go back and forth.

Americans can’t vote in other countries. What would Americans want to bring to other countries? A shitty expensive health care system?

I fully plan to learn more than the little Spanish I know if I move.

They can take citizenship and vote.

What I've encountered is more and more Q style thinking these past few years. Sometimes outright support of it. Sometimes even pro-Q demonstrators in the middle of town. The worst part is these people talk about it at their workplaces, they talk about it with their friends, they teach it to their kids and spouse. The whole line of thinking is a mindvirus.

It went from happily being detached from American stuff entirely to random locals saying, "You're American, right? What do you think about (bizarre conspiracy theory originating in the US)? It makes a lot of sense to me and I'm glad (politician) will take care of it. We need a guy like that here." When I ask where they're hearing about this, it's often "This American friend of mine tells me about it and he makes a lot of good points."

And this is just the more extreme kind of thinking that's spread. There are various other americanisms creeping in that I wish I could've escaped forever.

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