Will America become a nation of emigrants?
Will America become a nation of emigrants?
Join me live to discuss with the expatriate writer Lindsey Tramuta
America, it is often said, is a nation of immigrants. But is it becoming a nation of emigrants — a country that drives people away in search of greener pastures?
The expat American writer Lindsey Tramuta explores this question in a powerful new essay in Bitter Southerner. She will be my guest for a live today at 12:30 p.m. Eastern.
And check out Tramuta’s insightful essay, in which she reports:
A recent Gallup poll found that 40 percent of women aged 15 to 44 would leave the U.S. if they could — a figure that has quadrupled in the last decade. This slice of the population also has the lowest confidence in American institutions.
That frustration is inspiring many to take action. Ireland’s Central Statistics Office reported a 96 percent jump in American emigration between April 2024 and April 2025. France has likewise reported an increase in long-stay visa requests from Americans, and in the United Kingdom, 6,618 U.S. citizens applied for British citizenship in the 12 months leading up to March 2025 — the highest number since records began in 2004. Germany, which allows descendants of Nazi-era victims to apply for and reclaim citizenship, processed 48 percent more applications from U.S. citizens at consulates across the U.S. in 2025 after Trump’s inauguration than in 2024.
Photo: Olga Pankova/Getty
Discussion about this post
https://open.substack.com/live-stream/211085?utm_source=live-stream-scheduled-upsell
We moved right before the election, anticipating a Harris win, but things shifted really radically after we left, so obvsly our fault. Sorry about that.
But one of the primary reasons we left is that we are old enough to recognize that the change we've tried all our lives to make happen in the U.S. wasn't going to happen, and I at least really didn't want to keep living the lifestyle I'd been trying to replace for the rest of my life.
It used to be a sort of "own the libs" joke to say "if you like socialism so much, why don't you leave?" You could say that we took this as a prompt rather than a joke.
Now we're in the Netherlands, don't own a car, bike everywhere, take the trains everywhere else, and, sadly, have to watch as The Toddler (a Batman villain if ever I saw one) not only doesn't fix any of the things that we wanted fixed, but breaks the few remaining things that were working.
I am not even sure how to feel about this—it's an insanely privileged opportunity to be able to move abroad, and maybe I really could have done something to help if I'd stayed. But I'm doing my best from here, such as that is. It's been pointed out to me that this is a settler attitude, and I think that's a really valid criticism, but after all America is all about rugged individualism (a.k.a. "me first"). So I guess this is very in character. Sigh.
Really tough to be retired and feeling the need to flee. If our children and grandchildren leave we will certainly hope to accompany them. As it is we keep trying to protest and fight for a future here for their sake. It is looking dim.