Short answer: No.
But you are not here for the short answer.
Hurry Up And Wait
Five days after the election, and what has actually changed? Almost nothing. Some people feel better, some people feel worse, and nothing can happen by 18th-century design. We have a two-month gap before the newly elected get seated despite results now traveling by electrons instead of horses.
From the perspective of moving, the good news here was the lack of ICE at the polls or troops on (more) blue city streets. I didn’t have to run for a border after grabbing my passport, contingency cash, and documents. The next few months will be normal enough for me to assemble my residency documentation and to sell my house and car, markets willing.
Honestly, I’m not sure what would convince me to stay. Politics was the trigger, but it’s no longer my biggest motivator. Still, it’s worth reviewing the good and the bad in case others need to temper their optimism (part of my day job) and consider alternatives. So let’s start with the bad.
The Worst Timeline: Two Months
The election isn’t even technically over yet; Alaska may not report final results for another two weeks, and then there will be challenges and recounts. The margins are big enough in most races that the casual election denier has no options, but the feds can seize ballots and voting machines to create chaos along with two months of shredding documents and scorching earth. Here are a few recent things, from serious as a heart attack to completely absurd, that MAGA is already doing:
- Stephen Miller replaces Susie Wiles as chief of staff (the last adult has left the room)
- Texas Rep Calls For Gutting Powers Of Incoming Gov (like NC in 2016)
- Trump Establishes the Oval Office as a National Monument (pointless but on gilded brand)
Now think back to November 2024. What did Democrats do in that same two months? Virtually nothing. A few more judges got confirmed, but there was no attempt to Trump-proof the bureaucracy. They just let it happen. And by them I mean Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries.
They were weak, ineffective, and playing by old rules. After telling us that our democracy was at stake (it was), they did nothing to safeguard it when the worst timeline snapped into place. Jeffries and Schumer are likely to be leaders again, despite the growing outcry; they are going to be just as weak, ineffective, and playing by the wrong rules but with even higher stakes.
A quick aside for my American readers who feel the same way: Write your Democratic representative and senators. Make it clear you oppose the same-old same-old, and that they should too. It’s a sentiment shared by many new senators-elect.
The Worst Timeline: Two Years
Let’s say we have a relatively peaceful transition of power. And there aren’t a bunch of mulligan’ed insurrectionists storming the Capitol with lessons learned from their practice run. And neither Johnson nor his empty vessel Senate counterpart (I can’t even remember his name) comes up with dirty tricks to block seating newly elected Democrats. And Trump doesn’t do something crazy even by Trump 2.0 standards to distract from or derail the process. Then the Democrats (and their ineffective leaders) have to do all of the following:
- Stop the bleeding. So much damage has been done to our institutions and our entitlements. Stop the war. Stop ICE from torturing, murdering, and disappearing people–including citizens. Reverse cuts to programs like Medicare and SNAP. Force agencies to do their jobs as mandated by Congress. And, FFS, restore public health and safety to stop the measles deaths and explosive diarrhea.
- Stop the knife-wielding maniac. The unitary executive is all but fact thanks to SCOTUS, but Congress has substantial powers of its own when it decides to use them. MAGA’s a bunch of bullies and cowards who despite their enormous executive power have often backed down when their noses were judicially bloodied. Time for some congressional haymakers as well.
- Clamp down on lawlessness and corruption to prevent further lawlessness and corruption. Honestly, I could go for a little retribution, but I understand the call to not go totally to the Dark Side with the hearings and subpoenas. There’s too much straight-up crime in plain sight to handle in two years, so they need to go after administration officials, companies, and tech bros who are in a position to keep criming. Stop them from adding to the list or we’ll never get justice.
- Make the economy better. There were some great Democratic candidates this election, tailored more to their constituents than the party platform, but let’s be honest. We won because Trump’s tariffs and senseless war have caused direct pain to voters. Most people don’t care about democracy–we’ve learned that about a third are actually against it–but they do care about grocery and gas prices. If the Democrats can’t provide relief and if they can’t hang that lack of relief around MAGA’s necks, then 2028 could see many of this election’s gains reversed.
- Coup-proof the 2028 election. Trump and company will get more and more desperate as the 2028 election approaches. Authoritarian kleptocrats like this can only stay out of jail if they can stay in office. Otherwise it’s time for the autocrat’s parachute: flee the country and find a safe haven with the help of the other autocrats. The Bolsonaro crime family could write the book.
Now, let’s remember who MAGA is. Even with a trifecta, they could not or would not govern because they don’t care about making other people’s lives better–or at all really since cruelty’s the point. As far back as Boehner they couldn’t even pass a farm bill with a majority in the House. No good at doing good, they are masters of preventing it. Their extraordinary talent for shameless obstruction can be summed up in two words: Merrick Garland.
Look at those five items above and honestly ask yourself how much Congress can get done against a hostile executive, a POTUS-enabling SCOTUS, and dozens of skilled congressional saboteurs undermining everything from within. Plan B has to be playing the public sentiment game brilliantly enough to clearly pin the obstruction on Trump and MAGA. Results were mixed with the last showdown over the government shutdown. Thanks, Chuck.
I do have a fantasy scenario where the Democrats could win the PR fight, at least in the House–elect Pete Buttigieg as Speaker of the House. We might finally give Parliament a run for its money on sheer entertainment value. There just isn’t enough popcorn for watching that on C-SPAN!
Good News Everyone! There’s Strength In Numbers
Despite the grim federal landscape, there is cause for hope. The Bluenami also swept state and local governments into the deep blue. The majority of Americans by population and by number of states will have Democratic governors, and many of those states will have blue trifectas–Democratic state senate and house/assembly as well as governor.
There are 22 states with blue trifectas in 2027. There are 6 more states (including Texas!) with a blue governor and divided government. The room for election shenanigans in the next cycle will be relatively low, and the potential impact of smart redistricting could make it even smaller. Based on 2020 census data, there are 177 million people in the blue trifecta states and another 70 million with blue governors. That’s 75% of the entire country!
I have to give props to our anti-Federalist founding fathers. The way we get through this diseased federal government is by having the states stand up and stand together in opposing it. That’s some high-grade hopium with an 18th-century vintage.
More Good News: Pennsylvania’s Blue Trifecta
Pennsylvania has been one bad gubernatorial election away from becoming a shithole state for most of my political adulthood. We survived Tom Corbett (one of the cohort of Governors Ultrasound) because he was not smart enough to be dangerous. Shapiro’s 21-point obliteration of Garrity makes that a moot point for another four years. Even in a better timeline where Shapiro goes on to win the White House in 2028, the lieutenant governor, Austin Davis, would finish out the term. The commonwealth is safe even if the legislature flips back in two years.
But that’s not all! There’s reason to believe PA will actually make progress. Shapiro has been an excellent governor with a divided government. He’s a pragmatic technocrat with a “Getting Stuff Done” motto that’s not just talk. What can he do with a united government? I can’t wait to see, but I’d rather watch from a safe distance until we see the shape of the post-Trump world.
AND ONE MORE THING … PA was already turning blue, and this should help it along. Yes, the state still reads as purple, but the counties surrounding Philly got bluer and bluer with each election. Now that we have a competent governor and a supportive legislature, I expect some of the systemic imbalances that keep the state looking redder than it is will further weaken. And Harrisburg willing to help rather than hurt means good things for Philadelphia too.
I can’t quite wrap my head around a timeline with a Pennsylvania that makes me feel proud instead of ashamed, but we’re almost there. It’s certainly possible that Shapiro and some of his equally talented trifecta’ed counterparts could guide their states through the worst of this. That was actually one of my alternatives, moving to NYC to have a state and city that has my back, but now I wouldn’t even have to move for deep-blue protection, at least not for four years.
The Future, Always In Motion It Is
Last year I would have been happy to spend the rest of my days here, living my carefully engineered Philadelphia life in a version of Pennsylvania closer to William Penn’s founding vision. Rising costs and fading work prospects are not insurmountable problems. “And he lived happily ever after in Philadelphia” would be a nice end to my book. But I’m not dead yet.
Quite the contrary, I have seen possible futures in the last year that remind me of Past Me, the guy who didn’t want to own more than he could fit into his 1991 Honda CRX. Current Me and most possible incarnations wouldn’t go that far again, but they would all love to be less weighed down by things.
Maybe Uruguay will become my new permanent home with Buenos Aires my “I need more” pressure valve. Maybe I will leave Montevideo after a year and take my chances with the geology and hydrology of Mexico City. With Montevideo as a stable base to explore South America, who knows what–or who–I will find in Lima, Sao Paulo, Rio, or Santiago. In one particularly hot timeline, maybe I’ll get in early on the Antarctic Riviera.
I can’t see that far into the future, but all those timelines with so many possibilities require the same first step. So no, the election hasn’t changed my mind one bit.