Why Leaving America Is Like Having an Alcoholic Ex Boyfriend

Did you hear what he just did?

The scene at my last. Fourth of July in the U.S. in 2019

A friend of a friend dumped her boyfriend last month. He was a very bad boyfriend, although he had once been nice. She woke up one day and surveyed, with pen and paper, the pros and cons of Max. He drank, more and more. He looked terrible, pale and bloated. He was under the weather all the time and never wanted to do anything or go anywhere. He was erratic, prone to scary rages, in significant debt, on shaky ground at work and hopelessly unreliable at home. She was done. Done, done, done. And after she left, predictably, his life spiraled out of control.

I was sympathetic. I haven’t been through anything like that with a man, thank God. But her story sounded familiar. Very familiar. It reminded me of that dark time–which was the length of the previous administration–when every day was a fresh horror. I had a dedicated notebook then, just for keeping track of the reasons why I should leave the U.S. for good. Which, in 2019, I did.

Leaving the U.S. was difficult, though, because I love it with my whole heart. I did not make a decisive break. It was sloppy. After I moved to Sweden, I kept looking back. I got to know my way around Stockholm and mastered the grocery store and started studying Swedish, but I still kept thinking about home. I sought out news for two countries now. I stalked the U.S. on social media. I couldn’t quite quit America.

I had moved on, but a piece of my heart was still back there. And, much like Max, it was falling apart. Every day, the U.S. seemed to gather speed to plummet to the next level down with ever more force. Watching it from afar was shocking, especially that first year. My emotions were raw and so much happened. It also confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that I had done the right thing to part ways. I was living in a clean, civilized country, where everything worked. Meanwhile, my ex-country had become a madhouse.

At the time, my problem with America was largely my problem with Trump. Because he was an unmitigated catastrophe, my idea of the country’s decline focussed on him, even though of course America is much, much more than him. He symbolized for me its degradation. He had led it into what it was becoming. He became the personification of the ex.

Some of the things he did were merely ridiculous, like suggesting the construction of an electrified moat filled with alligators on the border of Southern Mexico. Or canceling the White House subscriptions to both The Washington Post and The New York Times because the editorial teams there treated him so unfairly. Or complaining that windmills were "very expensive" and that they "kill many bald eagles." 

Other things he did were not ridiculous, but pointed toward a democratic collapse. Congress was working to impeach him for the egregious Ukraine call, but he was calling the inquiry an attempted coup d’etat. His acting chief of staff confirmed that he had blocked military aid to Ukraine in order to force an investigation of his political rivals, but he called that a mere “quid pro quo.” So no big deal. A federal judge had to spell out in a ruling that "presidents are not kings” because he kept trying to act like one. In a 300-page report, the House Intelligence Committee accused him of placing his "personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States." Even Christianity Today called for him to be "removed from office" in an editorial due to his violation of the Constitution and "profoundly immoral actions." In December 2019, he was impeached in the House on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress."

I was relieved. I allowed myself to think that maybe he would be removed from office, or that at least his wings would be clipped. I thought that maybe I could be the happy kind of dual citizen, the kind with a foothold in each country. I celebrated my first Scandinavian Christmas with homemade cinnamon rolls, or kanelbullar. That New Year’s Eve, the government in Wuhan, China, confirmed that health authorities were treating dozens of cases of a pneumonia of unknown origin.

COVID-19 had arrived. He had already disbanded the White House pandemic response team in 2018, so no one had any idea what to do. “You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April,” he said on February 10.  “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,”  he said on February 27. On February 29, Washington state health officials reported the first COVID-19 death in the U.S. “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away,” he said on March 10. The next day, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The day after that, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 10%—its worst day since 1987. The next day, he declared a national emergency and the country started shutting down.

He continued to flounder and fail, as a terrified nation looked on, captive to his whims. On March 16, he announced that he would invoke the Defense Production Act to increase the production of hospital masks. He also said he viewed the country as entering a wartime setting and that he was therefore "a wartime president." War presidents, which Republicans so love, are the ones with extra powers. It was clear where he was going.

In April, he announced on Twitter that he would temporarily suspend all immigration in an effort to protect America from "the Invisible Enemy." In May, he said he was taking Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug untested against COVID-19, despite FDA warnings that it may cause serious heart problems. In July, as my first anniversary in Sweden approached, in the middle of the pandemic, he informed Congress and the United Nations that the U.S. would formally withdraw from the WHO.

As we would later learn, U.S. GDP declined 9.5% during the second quarter of 2020, the most drastic decline in 70 years. His response was to suggest postponing the 2020 presidential election. That still gives me chills, because we all know what happened.

It was batshit insane.

He lost the 2020 election and now he’s gone. When I remember that time of so much grief and confusion, I see how he made it much worse than it had to be. And he may be back. I will use my vote, which I will never relinquish, to do what I can to stop him. But I will never return to live in the U.S. I dodged that bullet. It’s over with us. For real this time.